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Rubus occidentalis L.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Rubus occidentalis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/rubus/rubus-occidentalis/). Accessed 2025-01-18.

Genus

Common Names

  • Black Raspberry

Glossary

glaucous
Grey-blue often from superficial layer of wax (bloom).
inflorescence
Flower-bearing part of a plant; arrangement of flowers on the floral axis.
ovate
Egg-shaped; broadest towards the stem.
terete
Like a slender tapering cylinder.
variety
(var.) Taxonomic rank (varietas) grouping variants of a species with relatively minor differentiation in a few characters but occurring as recognisable populations. Often loosely used for rare minor variants more usefully ranked as forms.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Rubus occidentalis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/rubus/rubus-occidentalis/). Accessed 2025-01-18.

A deciduous shrub with arching, biennial stems 6 to 10 ft long, very glaucous and armed with scattered short spines. Leaves dark green, composed of three (sometimes five, pinnately arranged) leaflets, which are ovate, 11⁄2 to 4 in. long, pointed, coarsely and unequally toothed, covered with a close white felt beneath. Flowers white, 1⁄2 in. across, produced in terminal few-flowered corymbs in June; prickles in inflorescence straight and terete. Fruits purple-black, hemispherical.

Native of eastern and central North America and the parent of several commercial fruiting varieties grown there. In this country it is only worth growing for the long, arching, blue-white stems, and even in this respect it is not the equal of Asiatic species such as R. biflorus and R. cockburnianus. There is a variety with yellow fruits.

R leucodermis Torr. & Gr.

Synonyms
R. occidentalis var. leucodermis (Torr. & Gr.) Focke

Closely allied to R. occidentalis; which it replaces in western N. America. It differs in its lighter green leaves and in having hooked, flattened prickles in the inflorescence. Introduced by Douglas in 1829. It has been grown in gardens for its blue-white stems, but the name is better known than the plant, for what used to be grown as ‘R. leucodermis’ was the Himalayan R. biflorus, a finer species with much whiter stems. R. glaucifolius Kell., from the same area, is closely related to R. leucodermis but has procumbent or prostrate main branches and is less prickly.

R × neglectus Peck

A natural hybrid between the above and R. idaeus var. strigosus. The form introduced to Kew in 1893 had dark red fruits and prickly blue-white stems.

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