The Urban Pantheist

Photo by cottonmanifesto. Location: Parkway Road, Brookline.

Urban species #178: Eastern Black Raspberry Rubus occidentalis

One day cottonmanifesto and I were discussing laziness (probably our own) and I said something like "too bad nothing good comes from neglect." Ever the devil's advocate, she chirped "Raspberries!" It was charming and true. Leave a raspberry bush alone and in no time you have a whole plantation. Like multiflora rose, the members of the raspberry genus Rubus are weedy and thorny: "brambles" is the proper collective term for the stalks and foliage of Rubus plants. Also like multiflora rose, brambles tend to overtake open areas, and when introduced outside their native ranges become invasive. Of course, the main benefit of brambles is that they produce copious amounts of fruit that is edible to humans.

Red raspberry, R. idaeus, a native of Europe is widely cultivated as a table fruit, for jams and jellies, and as a flavoring for everything from candy to salad dressing. In the east of North America we have R. occidentalis and in the west there is R. leucodermis, both of which are commonly called black raspberry. Blackberry, the plant that produces an oblong, rather than spherical, fruit, is R. fruticosus, as well as a few other less common species. Rubus is a crowded and complicated classification. Making matters more confusing is the fact that numerous hybrids have been developed, including loganberry and boysenberry, both hybrids of blackberries and raspberries.

The flowers of these plants provide nectar for bees and butterflies, and their foliage is fed upon by many caterpillar species, including winter moth. If the berries (which, botanically speaking aren't berries--don't ask, unless you desperately want to know the details of botanical anatomy) aren't eaten by humans, they may be eaten by birds, foxes, raccoons, rabbits, and turtles, among other animals.


Black raspberry flower, a month ago.