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 use in desserts, 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. Marionberry is a cross between Chehalem and
Olallieberry blackberries. It is said to "capture the best
attributes of both berries and yields an aromatic bouquet and
an intense blackberry flavor"[1]. Olallieberry (sometimes
spelled ollalieberry) in turn is a cross between loganberry and
youngberry.
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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. It is 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. It
has palmate leaves of three to five leaflets with flowers of white
or pink appearing from May to August, ripening to a black or dark
purple fruit, the "blackberry". The
blackberry is also the fruit of the blackberry plant. In proper
botanical language, it is not a berry at all, but instead an aggregate
fruit of numerous drupelets.
Above Images Are From The U.S.D.A.
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