PRAIRIE BLACKBERRY
File Size: 138 KB
 
Rubus laudatus  A. Berger
Morris County, Kansas
Height: Shrubs, to 10 feet
Family: Rosaceae - Rose family
Flowering Period:   May, June
Trunks: 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.
Habitat: Tallgrass prairies, glades, thickets, pastures, roadsides, floodplains.
Distribution: East 1/2 of Kansas
Origin: Native
Comments: More work is needed to understand the genus Rubus in Kansas and the Great Plains.

Prairie blackberry leaf
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Morris County, Kansas
Prairie blackberry leaf
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Morris County, Kansas
Prairie blackberry leaves
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Morris County, Kansas
Prairie blackberry leaf undersurface
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Morris County, Kansas
Prairie blackberry fruit
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Morris County, Kansas
Prairie blackberry stem
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Morris County, Kansas
Prairie blackberry habit
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Morris County, Kansas
Prairie blackberry flower
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Morris County, Kansas
Prairie blackberry flower
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Morris County, Kansas