Entries to Win Afghan

Sign up to receive the Books Leaving Footprints Newsletter. Comes out occasionally. No spam. No list swapping. Just email me! jhyshark@gmail.com Previous gifts include a short story, a poem, and coupons. Add your name, and don't miss out!

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

New Plant- Cutleaf Blackberry

 
Learned a new plant this week. Too bad it's not a good one.

I was out at the Art Barn helping to set up the Spooky Trail for Halloween. Ran into (literally) a bush with horrible killer thorns. Not a good picture, but it's the best I have now.

Rubus laciniatus

I had no idea what it is. The thorns looked like blackberry, but the leaves sure didn't.

Rubus laciniatus

Flowers? Another bad picture. But pretty much like a blackberry. Oddish triple-pinked outer edges. Slightly pink.

Rubus laciniatus

A little farther on (lots of these bushes snagging clothes and hands. Ouchy) I found... berries.

Rubus laciniatus

I was quite sure at this point it was some kind of blackberry, so I took a tiny taste. Yup. Very tasty. Ate one.

The core and sepals where the berry comes off look very blackberry.

Rubus laciniatus

Came home and looked it up. Blackberry. Cutleaf or Evergreen Blackberry, Rubus laciniatus. Alien, invasive. But often planted for the nice berries. I think that was the origins of these bushes a generation or so ago.

They can grow into small trees, overrunning other vegetation and creating impenetrable thickets. I can believe that. It has multitudes of recurved thorns that are even worse than the native blackberry. Spots I snagged on my hands are still sore today.

I'll try to get some better pictures to put on my plant pages.

Accountability report: 180 words on Dead Mule Swamp Druggist, to finish Chapter 49. Just for fun, and as a writing exercise, took a challenge from another writer to create a horror story in two sentences. Wrote three in my head while working (they are posted on Facebook). I'm not a fan of horror, but it's good to practice skills outside one's comfort zone sometimes.

See Purple in the Fields
if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Like This!

3 comments:

vanilla said...

An interesting and definitely a scary plant. I like blackberries, but have wandered into too many thickets in the Pacific Northwest. Not fun.

Rick (Ratty) said...

I'd love the berries, but I wouldn't want a thorny plant like this.

Secondary Roads said...

The berries look very inviting. The thorns--not so much.