Trailing Pacific Blackberry; aka:
Northwest Dewberry,
California Blackberry,
or Western Blackberry
"May be true what I had heard,
Earth's a howling wilderness
Truculent with fraud & force,"
Said I, strolling through the pastures,
And along the riverside.
Caught among the blackberry vines,
Feeding on the Ethiops sweet,
Pleasant fancies overtook me:
I said, "What influence me preferred
Elect to dreams thus beautiful?"
The vines replied, "And didst thou deem
No wisdom to our berries went?"
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882)
The name Rubus ursinus alludes to these berries attraction to bears. At SinLur Gardens, this native little blackberry creeps out of the surrounding woods to invade all the primary gardens & is pulled out regularly. It likes to creep around very close to the ground, but in spring it will reach upward for sunlight & climb into shrubs.
It cohabits naturally with our local evergreen huckleberry, salal, & Pacific rhododendrons. Though these small vines can be pesky, it is actually a relief to see such an extensive area where an authentic native blackberry dominates, & where the invasive 'Himalaya Giant' has not gotten a foothold displacing native flora.Though commonest west of the Cascades & along the coast from northern California to British Columbia, it can also be found as far inland as Idaho & as far south as Baja California. Their tendency to invade gardens that are near woods extends to a fondness for the ground under grape arbors in Northwest vineyards. Yet being native plants, they are not really troublesome & are easily managed & don't actually compete with the grapes or orchards even if the trailing blackberries are allowed to go a little rampant. In any typical garden, a heavy pair of gloves is all it takes to restrict them.
Its fragrant flowers are white sometimes with pinkish hues becoming numerous toward the end of April & still everywhere in evidence May & June. These are followed bu small sweet berries starting ruby-red & ripening to black in June, July & August.
It cannot compete harvest-wise with the 'Himalaya Giant' whose enormous fruits fill a bucket quickly & are exceedingly sweet, but the wilder flavor of jams & preserves from the trailing native has unique charm. As fresh fruit or frozen, they store a bit better than the 'Himalaya Giant' which quickly goes all mushy.
In breeding programs this wild blackberry gave rise to the domestic Loganberry, Boysenberry, & Youngberry, which form larger shrubby patches & are better for harvestable fruits, each with its unique flavor, & with taste & sizes sometimes greater even than the invasive 'Himalaya Giant.' But it can be a lucky thing to live at a woodland edge where the wild real thing is growing, even if the fruits are smaller & take longer to fill a jar.
They thrive in a wide range of conditions including in places with seasonal flooding but dry summers, in poor soil or good soil, as undergrowth in shady woodlands & especially bright shade, or out in the open in full sun where they will weave a stickery carpet of vines. Here in Kitsap county they are semi-evergreen though at higher elevations or further north into British Columbia it is a deciduous stickery vine.