192 



THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 



but a few years later the name was again changed to that given above. 

 Later the plant was sent out by other nurserymen as the Himalaya berry 

 and as Giant Himalaya. It now turns out that this blackberry is a form 

 of Rubus procerus (see discussion of this species page 84), a well-known 

 blackberry in Europe, and that a garden variety, almost if not identical, 

 had been introduced in Germany in 1889 under the name Theodor Reimers. 

 The Himalaya berry has now been thoroughly tested in all the fruit 

 regions of North America and is regarded as of commercial importance 

 only in very restricted areas on the Pacific Coast, notably about Puget 

 Sound, Washington. Several very distinct varieties have been sold under 

 the names given, probably through the interchange of labels, for the true 

 Himalaya is distinct in nearly every character. The value of this black- 

 berry, and any of its variations, if such there be, will probably be limited 

 by several very marked faults: The plants lack hardiness in the blackberry 

 regions east of the Roclcy Mountains; under cultivation it is about the most 

 unmanageable of all brambles; the plants are nowhere very productive, 

 and in the East are markedly unproductive; and the berries are everywhere 

 inferior in size, appearance, and quality. Plant and fruit are fully described 

 in the chapter on Varieties of Blackberries. 



HYBRID BLACKBERRIES 



The various species of blackberries are becoming hopelessly confused 

 in their cultivated varieties through cultivation. Card, in his Bush-Fruits, 

 1898, and Bailey, in The Evolution of our Native Fruits, 1898, were able 

 at the time they wrote to classify blackberries in several well-marked groups, 

 as Long-cluster, Short-cluster, Leafy-cluster, and Loose-cluster varieties. 

 Such grouping is no longer tenable. Descriptions of 133 varieties of black- 

 berries grown on the grounds of this Station, fail to fall into these groups 

 and fail in many cases to fall into species. Hybridization, especially in 

 kinds brought out in recent years, has completely upset man-made classifica- 

 tions. In the chapters on the botany of the blackberry and on varieties, 

 many known and supposed hybrids are named, so that it must suffice 

 here to make a general statement showing the limits so far reached in the 

 hybridization of blackberries with other fruits. 



There are many hybrids recorded between blackberries and dewberries, 

 not a few of which are described in this text. Mahdi, a garden bramble, 

 is a hybrid between the European blackberry and the European red rasp- 

 berry. Mammoth is said to be a hybrid between the blackberry and the 



