Plant · P-446

Thimbleberry

Rubus parviflorus

Thimbleberry is a thornless bramble native along the Pacific coast from Alaska to northern Mexico, with outlying stands in the Black Hills and around the Great Lakes. Unlike the rest of its genus it carries no prickles at all, which makes it far easier to pick and handle. The soft red thimble-shaped berries are sweet but very seedy, eaten raw, cooked into jam, or dried, and the young shoots can be peeled and eaten like asparagus. It spreads by an extensive rhizome network that resprouts quickly after fire or cutting, so it needs cool, consistently moist ground and struggles wherever summers turn hot and dry.