Edible Wild Fruits of New York. 



The black raspberry, or blackcap {Rubus occidentalis) differs from 

 the other species in the black color of the fruit. This is sweet and 

 pleasant, but generally more dry and seedy than the fruit of the red 

 raspberry. The stems grow in tufts, become recurved and take root 

 again at the tips if these reach the ground. The plant is easily culti- 

 vated, and from it several varieties have recently been developed. 

 The dwarf raspberry (Rubus triflorus) is much smaller than the 

 others, has a prostrate, or trailing mode of growth, and is almost her- 

 baceous in character. It3 blossoms are few and it fruits sparingly. 

 The fruit resembles that of the red raspberry, but has a darker red 

 color and is more acid to the taste, though of a pleasant flavor. The 

 plant delights in cool, shaded places, or in swampy woods. It is 

 scarcely probable that it would be valuable for cultivation. The 

 blackberry (Rubus villosus) is our most variable species of Rubus. 

 There are four quite distinct forms or varieties, though but three of 

 them are defined in the botanies. The typical form has stout, erect or 

 somewhat curving stems, three to eight feet high, and more or less 

 armed with stout prickles ; while the young shoots, branches, pe- 

 duncles and lower surface of the leaves are clothed with villose and 

 glandular hairs. The clusters of flowers are oblong, and the mature 

 fruit is oblong or cylindrical. A variety closely resembling this in size 

 and general characters has paler foliage, and pale, yellowish or whit- 

 ish-yellowish fruit. No description of it appears in our botanical 

 works, but the nurserymen have already placed it in cultivation and 

 named it the Crystal White blackberry. It is of excellent flavor and 

 novel in color, but the plant is tender and liable to winter-kill in this 

 latitude, unless protected. It is probably due to this character that 

 the wild plants are so rarely seen in this part of the State. 



Variety frondosus is similar to the typical form in its stems, but the 

 young branches and leaves are less hairy and less glandular; the clusters 

 of fruit are shorter, the petals are shorter, and the fruit is more rounded 

 or spherical in shape, and more coarsely seeded. It is inferior to the 

 fruit of the typical form in size and flavor. It grows more freely 

 in open, sunny places, and will occupy poor sandy soil where the 

 typical form will not thrive. It is a singular fact that the fruit of all 

 cultivated varieties that has come under my observation resembles the 

 fruit of this inferior variety more than the fruit of the typical form. 

 The catalogue illustrations of the fruit of the cultivated varieties also 

 point in the same direction. We are, therefore, led to conclude either 

 that the typical blackberry loses its usual shape when brought into 

 cultivation, or else we must suppose that our cultivated varieties have 



