Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

BLACK RASPBERRY

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Rubus occidentalis L.

Konza Prairie, Riley County, Kansas

Height: Shrubs, to 10 feet

Family: Rosaceae - Rose Family

Flowering Period: April, May, June

Trunks:

Canes erect or ascending, primocanes and floricanes eventually arched, sometimes rooting at tips, glabrous or sparsely pubescent, glaucous, armed; prickles straight or recurved, .16 to .3 inch; bark reddish purple, smooth, glaucous; wood white, soft.

Leaves:

Deciduous, alternate, 3-foliolate or palmately compound; stipules persistent, fused to petiole, .2 to .4 inch; petiole .8 to 2.4 inches, glabrous, usually armed; primocane leaflets 3(-5), lower surface white, canescent to tomentose, upper surface green, glabrous; central leaflet petiolule .2 to 1.4 inches, blade ovate to elliptic, 2.8 to 4.8 inches long, 1.6 to 3.6 inches wide, base rounded to nearly cordate, margins twice-serrate, apex acuminate; lateral leaflets petiolule 0 to .08 inch, blade ovate to ovate-elliptic.

Flowers:

Inflorescences axillary or terminal, corymbs, leafy, 3.2 to 14 inches, 2-7(-20)-flowered; peduncles pubescent, usually armed with needle-like and broad-based prickles; pedicels .2 to .28 inch, pubescent, usually armed with needle-like and broad-based prickles. Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric, .3 to .4 inch diam.; hypanthium hemispheric; sepals ovate to elliptic, .2 to .35 inch long, .08 to .12 inch wide; petals 5, white, obovate to elliptic, .08 to .2 inch; pistils numerous on dome-shaped receptacle, ovary superior, 1-locular; style .08 to .12 inch; stigma lobed.

Fruit:

June-August; aggregated drupelets, depressed-globose to hemispheric, .5 to .6 inch long and wide, separating as a unit from receptacle; drupelets purplish black, glaucous; stone 1 per drupelet, yellow to tan, compressed-ovoid, ca. .1 inch long.

Habitat:

Openings in woodlands, tallgrass and mixed-grass prairies, glades, thickets, pastures, roadsides, fencerows, ditches.

Distribution:

East 2/3 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Uses:

Native Americans ate the fruit fresh or dried for winter use and steeped the young leaves to make a tea-like beverage.

Comments:

Rubus occidentalis is our most common blackberry. It is sometimes cultivated for its fruits, which are eaten raw, made into jams and jellies, or baked in pies and muffins.

Black raspberry flowers