Black Raspberries vs Blackberries

Metus dictum at tempor commodo

The Rubus “berries” are, in fact, not berries but aggregate fruits. This distinction is important as it helps define their appearances. Whereas a “botanical definition” berry (e.g., a tomato) is a fruit that has its seeds enclosed together in a single ovary inside a fleshy pulp, aggregate fruits are formed from the merger of several ovaries in a single flower. In these fruits, the individual parts (think “mini fruits” that together form the larger aggregate fruit) are drupelets. Once you know that regular drupes are fleshy, thin-skinned fruits like plums or cherries, you can picture drupelets–very small fruits of this same description. And these drupelets together make the aggregates of the Rubus.

There are many, many Rubus fruits worldwide, with favored cultivars in addition to native and/or naturalized species (in fact, unchecked growth has led to the use of the word “weed”). In the United States, Oregon is very much the seat of “black berry” production, with the bulk of this nation’s black raspberry, blackberry, marionberry, and boysenberry crops produced there. Part of the reason there are so many different Rubus black berries is there has been extensive hybridization over the decades to improve and/or recombine plant characteristics. Attributes including plant hardiness and fungal resistance; thornlessness versus thorniness; the timing of fruiting; and berry size, flavor, and ease-of-handling (i.e., harvestability and transportability) are all focused on. This extensive hybridizing has brought with it disagreements about the nature of some fruits produced–new variety of the original or an entirely new species?