Rolandvue 3rd Week June:Wine Berry,Raspberry,Black Raspberry,Black Berry

In our area there are four thorny arching "canes" that produce berries, at least for practical purposes.  It may be another week or two for maximum production but you need to find your berry patches now to compete with the numerous other consumers.  The wine berry(Rubus phoenicolasius) or Japanese raspberry is semi-invasive introduced variety which is able to hybridize with the native raspberry and is otherwise similar.  So semi-quoting the forager we can lump the two together. The foreign variety may be more common in the Lake Roland area.

So putting wine berry aside we have three arching canes producing thorns and berries. Two of these will have a leaf with green upper surface and white under surface.  The blackberry will be green on both surfaces.  So a cane berry with green leaves is a blackberry (Rubus fruticosus).  The berry does not have the cup like hollow that the other berries have.  There are larger seeds, but the seeds have omega 3 oils.  The video below is of a group near the Lake Roland light rail bridge.  Ripe when dark purple, the berries will be at different stages, so taking a few at a time.

So there are two cane berries with green leaf top, white leaf bottom.  the raspberry and the black raspberry(Rubus occidentalis.)  The black raspberry fruit is a little smaller  than the raspberry and will eventually turn the characteristic deep purple.  There is often a white coating on the cane,like a mold that will come off when (carefully) wiped. These are great to eat right off the vine,but the forager likes to leave a few for seeds, to help them compete with the invasive raspberries.  They are ripe when darkest color and easily removed.

That leaves one  actual native raspberry(Rubus strigosus).  It was the typical leaf with green top and white bottom, usually no coating on the cane, and a slightly larger berry.  The berries tend to ripen at approximately the same time. These berries have the thimble shaped cup as opposed to the blackberry.  The canes tend to be redder than the black raspberry. The leaves are often three pointed leaflets but can be up to seven.  Most of the canes have perennial roots but biennial canes, first year non-bearing, second year flowering and fruiting.

The videos show the three cane berries near the light rail line.  The narrator gets the blackberry wrong and has been disciplined.  The one with the green underside of the leaf is the blackberry not the black raspberry. Good, responsible, harvesting.

raspberry,white under leaf,red cane

(there are dozens of varieties but this would be the common cane berries nearby)