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'.
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.
In the photo at the upper right, the early blossoms have formed more drupelets than the later ones. This can be a symptom of marginal pollinator populations, where a small change in conditions, such as a rainy day, or a day too hot for bees to work after early morning, can reduce the number of bee visits/pollen grains delivered to the blossom, thus reducing the quality of the fruit. The drupelets only develop around ovules which are fertilized by the male gamete from a pollen grain.
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.
Food | List of fruits | List of vegetables
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Ascorbic Acid | Blackberry (disambiguation) | List of fruit | List of fruits | Self-proclaimed Capitals of the World | Vitamin C
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