Rubus bellobatus

L. H. Bailey

Kittatinny blackberry

Rosaceae Edible: Fruit

Has a deadly poisonous lookalike — see comparison below

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Summary

Deciduous shrub reaching 2 m tall, hardy to UK zone 6. Hermaphrodite flowers pollinated by insects; self-fertile and apomictic. Tolerates light sandy, medium loamy, and heavy clay soils with good drainage. Grows in mildly acid to mildly alkaline pH, semi-shade to full sun, and prefers moist conditions.

Description

A rambling herb or shrub. It branches often and keeps growing from year to year. It can be a climber growing to 6 m high. It has a woody rootstock. The flowers are pink and white.

Edible Uses

The oblong fruit, around 30mm long, can be eaten raw or cooked.

Medicinal Uses

None known.

Distribution

It is a temperate plant. It grows on red lay loams and sandy soils It is often along creek banks.

Where It Grows

Australia, North America, USA,

Cultivation

Easily grown in a good well-drained loamy soil in sun or semi-shade. This species is a blackberry with biennial stems, it produces a number of new stems each year from the perennial rootstock, these stems fruit in their second year and then die. A parent of many cultivated forms of blackberry in N. America, the cultivar 'Kittatinny' has been available in Britain. The plant produces apomictic flowers, these produce fruit and viable seed without fertilization, each seedling is a genetic copy of the parent Plants in this genus are notably susceptible to honey fungus.

Propagation

Seed requires stratification and is best sown in early autumn in a cold frame. Stored seed needs one month of stratification at around 3°c and should be sown as early in the year as possible. Prick out seedlings once large enough to handle and grow on in a cold frame before planting out into permanent positions in late spring of the following year. Cuttings of half-ripe wood can be taken in July or August in a frame. Tip layering in July, planting out in autumn. Division in early spring or just before leaf-fall in autumn.

Other Uses

A purple to dull blue dye is obtained from the fruit.

Other Information

It is cultivated.

Notes

There are about 250 Rubus species.

Dangerous Lookalikes

This plant can be confused with the following toxic species. Always verify identification carefully before consuming any wild plant.

DEADLY

Red Baneberry

Actaea rubra

Walter Siegmund (talk)

Safe

Kittatinny blackberry

Rubus bellobatus

Wikimedia Commons - NiveisVulpes

Red Baneberry: Short herbaceous plant (no thorns), berries on thick red stems, each berry has a single seed, compound sharply-toothed leaves.

Kittatinny blackberry: Thorny woody canes (brambles), aggregate berry made of many drupelets, berries pull easily from receptacle.

References (4)

Gentes Herb. 5:666. 1945
Mansfield's Encyclopedia of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops p 430
Paczkowska, G . & Chapman, A.R., 2000, The Western Australian Flora. A Descriptive Calatogue. Western Australian Herbarium. p 512
Plants for a Future database, The Field, Penpol, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0NG, UK. http://www.scs.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/