Prairie blackberry

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Prairie blackberry habit

Prairie blackberry fruit

Prairie blackberry flower

Prairie blackberry stem

Prairie blackberry leaf

Prairie blackberry leaf undersurface

Prairie blackberry flower

Prairie blackberry leaves

Prairie blackberry

Prairie blackberry leaf

Morphology

Trunk

Canes erect or ascending, primocanes and floricanes eventually arched, rarely rooting at tips, glabrous, not glaucous, armed; prickles straight or recurved, .12 to .24 inch; bark reddish purple, smooth, not glaucous; wood white, soft.

Leaves

Deciduous, alternate, palmately compound or 3-foliolate; stipules persistent, fused to petiole, .5 to .63 inch; petiole .8 to 2.8 inches, glabrate or sparsely pubescent, usually armed with few recurved prickles; primocane leaflets (3-)5, lower surface grayish green, sparsely to densely velvety, upper surface dark green to green, sparsely pubescent, sometimes densely pubescent along midvein; central leaflet petiolule .2 to .8 inch, blade ovate to elliptic or elliptic-oblong, 2.8 to 5.2 inches long, 1.2 to 2.8 inches wide, base cordate to rounded, margins serrate or twice-serrate, apex acute to short-acuminate; lateral leaflets petiolule 0 to .12 inch, blade elliptic.

Flowers

Inflorescences axillary or terminal, racemes, usually slightly flared toward apex, leafy, 2 to 6.4 inches, 4-15-flowered; peduncles sparsely pubescent, usually armed with recurved prickles, sometimes unarmed; pedicels .4 to 1.6 inches, sparsely pubescent, unarmed or armed with few recurved prickles. Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric, 1 to 1.6 inches diam.; hypanthium hemispheric; sepals ovate, .2 to .3 inch long, .08 to .16 inch wide; petals 5, white, obovate, .5 to .8 inch; pistils numerous on dome-shaped receptacle, ovary superior, 1-locular; style .06 to .08 inch; stigma lobed.

Fruit

June-August; aggregated drupelets, ovoid to cylindric, .4 to 1 inch long, .3 to .55 inch wide, not separating from receptacle; drupelets purplish black, not glaucous; stone 1 per drupelet, yellow to tan, compressed-ovoid, .1 to .12 inch.

Ecology

Habitat

Tallgrass prairies, glades, thickets, pastures, roadsides, floodplains.

Distribution

East 1/2 of Kansas

Additional Notes