Blackberry
- This article is about the fruit. For other uses see blackberry (disambiguation)
The blackberry is a widespread and well known shrub — a bramble fruit (Genus Rubus, Family Rosaceae) growing to 3 m (10 ft) and producing a soft bodied fruit popular for making jams and sometimes wine. Several Rubus species are called blackberry and since the species easily hybridize, there are many cultivars with more than one species in their ancestry.
The blackberry has a scrambling habit of dense arching stems carrying short curved very sharp spines, the branches rooting from the node tip when they reach the ground. Very pervasive, growing at fast daily rates in woods, scrub, hillsides and hedgerows, colonising large areas in a relatively short time. It will tolerate poor soil, and is an early coloniser of wasteland and building sites. Palmate leaves of 3 - 5 leaflets with flowers of white or pink appearing from May to August, ripening to a black or dark purple fruit, 'blackberries'.
Black Butte blackberry
The blackberry is also a fruit. However, in the technical jargon of botany, it is not a berry at all, but instead an aggregate fruit of numerous drupelets.
Blackberry blossoms are good nectar producers, and large acreages of wild blackberries will yield a medium to dark, fruity honey.
Superstition (in the UK) holds that blackberries should not be picked after September 15th as the devil has claimed them having left a mark on the leaves. Related to the smaller R. caesius which produces a white waxy coating on the fruits. It is not advisable to use or eat Blackberries growing close to roadsides due to the accumulated toxins (lead Etc.) from the traffic.
External Link Blackberry Pollination Images
