description
Blackberry is part of the Rosaceae family, the stems or canes
are erect or semi-erect, arched or trailing and bear numerous curved or
straight thorns. Canes are biennial but occasionally live longer. Young
canes emerge from buds on the crown each spring and grow very rapidly. These
first-year canes (known as primocanes) grow in an arching manner and in
autumn as their tips touch the ground, they sprout roots and produce a new
bud that will grow into a new primocane in spring. The new plants at the
tips of canes are called daughter plants. These plants are aggressive and
can be invasive, sometimes difficult to control or eradicate.
Buds at the ends of the canes that have overwintered (second-year canes)
sprout in spring and produce short flowering canes (floricanes) that bear
the flower clusters. Only two year-old canes are able to flower and fruit.
After fruiting, the second-year cane system dies back to the crown over
autumn and winter, leaving an independent daughter plant that is one year
old and the mother plant that will re-sprout in spring.
Simple leaves may occur near the flowers. Leaves are arranged singly at
different levels on the canes. Simple leaves may occur near the flowers.
They are compound leaves consisting of 3 or 5 shortly-stalked oval leaflets
with toothed edges and a longer stalk attaching the leaf to the cane.
Leaflets are usually dark green on the upper side and lighter green
underneath. Some blackberries have the underside of the leaflets covered
with whitish hairs. Short prickles occur on the leaf stalks and the
underside of the leaf veins.
Flowers are white or pink, and grow in clusters on side branches of the
floricanes. Flower clusters are either cylindrical or pyramidal and occur
from late November to late February.
The usually black fruit is not a true berry. Botanically it is termed an
aggregate fruit, composed of small drupelets, each containing one seed. The
number of seeds in a berry varies, but there can be as many as 80. Fruiting
occurs from late December to April. Seeds are light to dark brown, oval and
deeply and irregularly pitted.
common names
& nomenclature
Rubus is from the Latin "ruber" meaning red, referring to the fruit color at
certain stages of development. Fruticosus is Latin for "bushy" referring to
the bramble-like nature of the plant.
Also known as:
bramble,
cut-leaved blackberry,
cloudberry,
dewberry,
goutberry,
high blackberry,
thimbleberry,
bumble-kite,
bramble-kite,
bly,
brummel,
brambleberry,
scaldhead,
and
brambleberry
