Plant · P-442

Black Raspberry

Rubus occidentalis

Black raspberry is the most soil-flexible of the common cane fruits, tolerating alkaline and calcareous ground where most brambles demand acid sand. Its fruit is the yield, but the young spring shoots peel and cook like rhubarb, and the leaf or root bark makes a tea. It walks outward on its own by rooting cane tips or underground runners, fills in into a thorny living barrier once established, and holds real drought tolerance once its roots are in - unusual for a cane fruit.