Fruits  Berry Fruits

The most extensively available and widespread berry is the blackberry shrub which produces a bramble fruit which has a soft body outside (genus Rubus, family Rosaceous), It grows to a height of 3 m and is popularly used in desserts, wine and jams. Several Rubus species are also known as blackberry and since the species are easily hybridized; there are many cultivars with more than one species in their ancestry. There are many species and hybrids, such as dewberry and loganberry.

Marion berry is a berry cross between Chehalem and Olallieberry blackberries. It blends well the attributes of both berries and produces an aromatic flavor and yields an intense blackberry flavor Olallieberry (sometimes spelled Ollallieberry) in turn which is a cross between loganberry and youngberry.

The blackberry has dense arching stems which are short and curved. It has very sharp spines when the branches root from the node tip when they reach the ground. It is best for growing at fast rates in scrub, woods and hill sides. It can tolerate poor soil conditions and it captivates places like wasteland and building sites easily. The leaves are palmate with three to five leaflets with flowers of pink or while. The flowers appear from May to August that ripens to dark purple or black fruit, forming the "blackberry".

In proper botanical language, it is actually not a berry at all, but instead an aggregate fruit of numerous drupelets.

The Raspberry is not a true berry which is a composite fruit. It is also known as Red Raspberry which is a tart and sweet fruit. It is similar to blackberry but has only few differences like it is smaller, softer and has a different color. You can find it growing in places like forests or fields especially where there is free space due to fire or wood-cutting processes that has occurred. It can be grown very easily due to its tendency to spread. Raspberry is sometimes eaten by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Emperor Moth and Peach Blossom.

SEASON- Late summer or the early autumn.

There are two commercially available types- the wild type that bears fruit during summer and has the tendency to produce much fruits during the first two years for a short period in the mid summer. The other type of raspberry is "ever" bearing plant which also bears fruits on the first-year canes in the autumn, as well as the summer crop on the second-year canes.

A golden Raspberry, which is in pale yellow, has been selected by horticulturalists.

Another raspberry called black raspberry which is known as blackcap, is not actually the same plant, but is a North American species. It is a cultivar of Rubus occidentals. Even there exists another non- cultivated species which are also called Raspberries.

Cloudberry

Cloudberry plant can grow 25 cm high, has a pale red fruit initially which turns into amber color in autumn. The ripe fruits are soft, juicy, golden-yellow and are rich in Vitamin C. They have a distinctive tart taste while they are fresh.

KNOWN FOR - In Finland the berries are eaten with "Leip? usto" (a local hard cheese) and much sugar. In Sweden, they are also used as an ice cream topping. In Canada, cloudberries are used to flavor a special beer. Canadians also use them for jam, but not on the same large scale as Scandinavians.

It is a good supplement to cure scurvy due to its rich Vitamin C content. It acts as an inbuilt natural preservative due to a good content of benzoic acid. The Cloudberry leaves can cure certain problems like urinary tract infections as used in the ancient Scandinavian herbal medicine

NATIVE ORIGIN- Japan, Korea and China

Wineberry (Rubus phoenicolasius), also known as Japanese Wineberry, though sounds like it is used for making wine, despite the name, they are not fit for making wines (they taste tart). It is a type of Raspberry and found extensively in the eastern part of the United States and Europe. Wineberry is prevalent in New Zealand. They are sometimes invasive in some areas. The moist and loamy soil supports their growth widely, with protection from the wind. The wine berry, is a type of raspberry, and grows wild in the eastern part of the United States.

SEASON- The plant bears fruit in the summer or in the early autumn. The fruit is orange or red in color with a diameter of around 1cm. The leaves are whitish underneath.

Bilberry is a name given to several species of low-growing shrubs in the genus Vaccinium (family Ericaceae) that bear tasty fruits. The species most often referred to is Vaccinium myrtillus L., also known as blaeberry, whortleberry, whinberry, myrtle blueberry, and probably other names regionally.

Bilberries are rarely cultivated but fruits are sometimes collected from wild plants growing on public lands, notably in Scandinavia and Poland. Vaccinium myrtillus fruit is called bl?r in Swedish and mustikka in Finnish; Vaccinium uliginosum fruit is odon in Swedish and juolukka in Finnish. The fruits are eaten fresh, or are usually made into jams, juices or pies. They have therapeutic uses in herbal medicine.

Huckleberry is a name used in North America for several plants in two closely related genera in the family Ericaceae, Gaylussacia and Vaccinium.While some Vaccinium species, such as the Red Huckleberry, are always called huckleberries, other species may be called blueberries or huckleberries depending upon local custom. Similar Vaccinium species in Europe are called bilberries.

Blueberry refers to some plants of the genus Vaccinium, which also includes cranberries, bilberries (also called blueberry), and many wild shrubs producing edible, round, blue berries (botanically false berries) with flared "crowns" at the end. The fruit are first white, then reddish-purple, and turn blue on ripening; the fruit are also called blueberries, and have a sweet taste. Blueberries are used in jellies, jams, pies, and many other snacks and delicacies.

  Blueberries are both cultivated and picked wild. In North America, the most common cultivated species is V. corymbosum, the Northern Highbush Blueberry. Hybrids of this with other Vaccinium species adapted to southern US climates are known collectively as Southern Highbush Blueberries.

Wild blueberries, smaller and much more expensive than cultivated ones, are prized for their intense flavor and color. The Lowbush Blueberry, V. angustifolium, is found from Newfoundland westward and southward to Michigan and West Virginia. In some areas it produces natural blueberry barrens, where it is practically the only species covering large areas. Several First Nations communities in Ontario are involved in harvesting wild blueberries.

Barberris is a genus of about 450-500 species of deciduous and evergreen shrubs from 1-5 m tall with thorny shoots, native to the temperate and subtropical regions of Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and South America. They are closely related to the genus Mahonia, which is included within Berberis by some botanists. Many are known by the vernacular name barberry.

The genus is characterized by dimorphic shoots, with long shoots which form the structure of the plant, and short shoots only 1-2 mm long. The leaves on long shoots are non-photosynthetic, developed into three-spined thorns 3-30 mm long; the bud in the axil of each thorn-leaf then develops a short shoot with several normal, photosynthetic leaves. These leaves are 1-10 cm long, simple, and either entire, or with spiny margins. Only on young seedlings do leaves develop on the long shoots, with the adult foliage style developing after the young plant is 1-2 years old.

The deciduous species (e.g. Berberis thunbergii, B. vulgaris) are noted for good autumn color, the leaves turning pink or red before falling. In some evergreen species from China (e.g. B. candidula, B. verruculosa), the leaves are brilliant white beneath, making them particularly attractive.

The gooseberry is a well-known fruit-bush. Closely related species are found in northern and central Europe (Ribes grossularia) and in North America (Ribes hirtellum).

The gooseberries are usually placed in genus Ribes, along with the closely related blackcurrants, redcurrants etc. A few taxonomists place the gooseberries in a separate genus, Grossularia, but since gooseberry-blackcurrant hybrids (e.g. the Jostaberry) can be cultivated, this seems inappropriate. However the gooseberries differ somewhat from the currants, chiefly in their spinous stems, and in their flowers growing on short footstalks, solitary, or two or three together, instead of in racemes.

The first part of the word has been usually treated as an etymological corruption either of the Dutch word Kruisbezie or the allied German Krausbeere, or of the earlier forms of the French groseille. The New English Dictionary takes the obvious derivation from goose and berry as probable; the grounds on which plants and fruits have received names associating them with animals are so commonly inexplicable, that the want of appropriateness in the meaning is enough for those authors to assume that the word is an etymological corruption. Alternatively the word has been connected to the Middle High German krus (curl, crisped), latinized as grossularia.

The wild gooseberry is a small, straggling bush, nearly resembling the cultivated plant, the branches being thickly set with sharp spines, standing out singly or in diverging tufts of two or three from the bases of the short spurs or lateral leaf shoots, on which the bell-shaped flowers are produced, singly or in pairs, from the groups of rounded, deeply-crenated 3 or 5 lobed leaves.

The fruit is smaller than in the garden kinds, but is often of good flavor; it is generally hairy, but in one variety smooth, constituting the R. uva-crispa of writers; the color is usually green, but plants are occasionally met with having deep purple berries.

The gooseberry is indigenous in Europe and western Asia, growing naturally in alpine thickets and rocky woods in the lower country, from France eastward, perhaps as far as the Himalaya. In Britain it is often found in copses and hedgerows and about old ruins, but has been so long a plant of cultivation that it is difficult to decide upon its claim to a place in the native flora of the island. Common as it is now on some of the lower slopes of the Alps of Piedmont and Savoy, it is uncertain whether the Romans were acquainted with the gooseberry, though it may possibly be alluded to in a vague passage of Pliny:The hot summers of Italy, in ancient times as at present, would be unfavorable to its cultivation. Abundant in Germany and France, it does not appear to have been much grown there in the middle ages, though the wild fruit was held in some esteem medicinally for the cooling properties of its acid juice in fevers; while the old English name, Fea-berry, still surviving in some provincial dialects, indicates that it was similarly valued in Britain, where it was planted in gardens at a comparatively early period.

Nannyberry (Viburnum lentago) is a large shrub or small tree native to the north-eastern United States and southern Canada from New Brunswick south to New York and west to the Dakotas. The Nannyberry is also called Sweet viburnum or Sheepberry.

Like all viburnums, the leaf of the Nannyberry is oppositely arranged on the twig, it is oval, 3.5 inches long, finely serrate, with a winged petiole. The flowers are small, whitish and arranged in large round clusters. The fruit is a small round blue-black drupe, about 3/8 of an inch on a reddish stem. The fruit is sweet and edible. The bark of the Nannyberry is grayish-brown, and broken into small scales. Twigs of the Nannyberry are smooth, tough, flexible and produce an offensive odor when crushed or bruised.

Both for fruit and ornament the mulberry should be more generally planted. Even if the fruit is not to the taste, the tree is naturally open-centered and round-headed, and is an interesting subject; some of the varieties have finely cut leaves. The fruits are in great demand by the birds, and after they begin to ripen the strawberry beds and cherry trees are freed from robins and other fruit-eating birds. For this reason alone they are a valuable tree for the fruit-grower. Trees may be purchased cheaper than one can propagate them.

Mulberry refers both to the mulberry tree and to the fruit of that tree. It also refers to the closely related Paper Mulberry Broussonetia papyrifera.

The mulberries are small to medium-sized trees native to warm temperate areas of Asia and North America. They are fast-growing when young, but soon become slow-growing and rarely exceed 10-15 m tall. The leaves are alternately arranged, simple, often lobed, more often lobed on juvenile shoots than on mature trees, and toothed on the margin. The fruit is a multiple fruit, 2-3 cm long, red ripening dark purple.

The fruit is an edible fruit and is widely used in some places. The fruit of the Black Mulberry, native to southwest Asia, and the Red Mulberry, native to eastern North America, have the best flavor. The fruit of the White Mulberry, an East Asian species which is extensively naturalized in urban regions of eastern North America is insipid in flavor.