A blackberry is a small cluster
A bramble’s fruit has more detail than it first appears.
Explore this story
Your choice is saved only in this browser.
A blackberry consists of numerous small drupes. Rubus ulmifolius has white or pinkish five-petalled flowers and fruits that turn black when ripe. Its leaf is compound too, divided into three to five leaflets, green above and greyish and hairy beneath.
The arching stems form dense bramble patches. The University of Évora associates the plant with woods, hedges, uncultivated ground and watersides, preferring cool, moist soils. This is a general botanical description; it does not identify a particular bramble patch in the municipality.
A compound leaf may look like a small branch. The distinction helps us read the plant: in the bramble described by the University of Évora, three to five leaflets belong to one leaf and are arranged like fingers spreading from a common base. The greyish underside results from dense hairs, called tomentum.
The description also mentions purple, pruinose shoots, with a waxy-looking surface coating. These details differ from the prickles on the stems. The plant also occurs on ground altered by human activity; a bramble patch alone does not show when or why land stopped being cultivated.
A JOINT PARTIES
Open each level and compare fruit and leaf.
1 · Whole blueberry
What we call blueberry is a set of numerous small drupes.
3 · What about the parts of the sheet?
The leaf of silva is divided into three to five folioli. These parts belong to the leaf, not to the fruit.
Know the word foliolo →
Source and context
University of Évora — Rubus ulmifolius, leaves and fruits
Accessed: . Editorial summary; the date of consultation is not the date of the facts.