Blackberry

I drew the blackberry on the cane because that is how the bush presents itself in late August. Red fruit sits beside purple-black fruit, and small green ones are still forming on the same stem. Each fruit is a cluster of drupelets, and no two clusters match. In this blackberry print I kept all three stages together, with the leaves around them. The result is a study of a fruit in the middle of ripening, which is a different picture from the single glossy berry most people expect.

In shortThe blackberry, Rubus fruticosus, is a prickly bramble of hedgerows and woodland edges in temperate regions. Its fruit is an aggregate of many small drupelets. The plate shows a cane with fruit at several stages of ripeness, together with its leaves, seen from above and below.

Key Facts

What is a blackberry made of?

A blackberry is made of many small fruits, not one. Each flower carries several ovaries, and each fertilised ovary swells into a drupelet with its own skin, flesh and seed. Together the drupelets form an aggregate fruit, the bumpy cluster you see on the cane.

The drupelets sit on a central core called the receptacle. In a blackberry the core comes away with the fruit, which is one way to tell it from a raspberry, where the core stays on the plant. The grip between drupelets varies with ripeness and growing conditions, so some berries hold together firmly and others fall apart in the hand.

The name Rubus fruticosus is itself an aggregate. It stands for a large group of closely related brambles that taxonomists divide in many different ways. The plate is best read as a portrait of the common bramble rather than of one narrow species.

How does a blackberry cane grow?

A blackberry cane lives for two years. The crown and roots are perennial, but each cane is biennial. In its first year the cane is called a primocane. It grows long and carries compound leaves, but it usually does not flower.

In its second year the cane becomes a floricane. It stops lengthening, sends out short side branches and carries the flowers and then the fruit. After fruiting it dies, while new primocanes rise from the crown. The canes arch over, and where a tip touches the ground it can root and start a new plant.

Rooting tips and seed spread by birds let a bramble fill a hedge bank quickly. That vigour makes the plant useful for restoring bare ground. It also explains why introduced brambles have become serious weeds in Australia and New Zealand.

Why are blackberries at different stages on the same cane?

Fruit on one cane ripens at different times because the flowers open over several days, not all at once. A single cluster can hold green, red and purple-black fruit together. Red does not mean ripe. The fruit turns glossy purple-black only at the end, and a ripe berry loses its shine, turns dull and comes away from the cane easily.

Picking late has an old rule attached to it. British folklore says not to eat blackberries after Michaelmas, on 29 September, because the devil is said to spit on them. The belief probably grew from the mould and grubs that late, wet-weather berries often carry. The studio’s essay on blackberries in folklore follows the myths and legends further.

What is the difference between prickles and thorns?

Prickles grow from the outer layers of a stem, while thorns are modified shoots that grow from the wood. A blackberry cane bears prickles. They are hooked, they help the cane scramble over other plants, and they come away from the stem cleanly. A true thorn, such as the one on a hawthorn, is part of the stem itself and does not.

The leaves have their own structure. Each leaf is made of three to five serrated leaflets, set like the fingers of a hand, with prominent veins. The underside is paler and covered in soft hairs. Hooked prickles and a hairy leaf underside are two reasons a bramble is awkward to move through, and two reasons it survives where browsing animals pass.

How long have people eaten blackberries?

People have gathered blackberries for a very long time. Archaeological evidence of blackberry eating reaches back to the Neolithic, and the fruit has been a staple of hedgerow gathering in Europe ever since. The bramble thrives on disturbed ground, which is exactly where people have always walked and settled.

Wild berries are smaller and often more intensely flavoured. Cultivated blackberries have been bred for size, firmness and thornless canes, and they are grown as a crop in several countries. Whatever the type, the fruit is eaten fresh, baked into pies and crisps, or made into jam and jelly. It does not sweeten once picked, so the best berries are the ones left to ripen on the cane.

Drawing the blackberry

The plate shows the bush as it looks in late summer, with a cane carrying fruit at several stages at once. Some fruit is green and only just forming. Some is red and swollen but unripe. Some has reached the deep purple-black of full ripeness. Every drupelet has its own colour and surface, so I drew the clusters one by one.

The leaves are drawn on both sides. I drew the paler underside of a leaf as well as the upper surface, so the plate records the whole leaf rather than the face a photograph usually catches. Glare on ripe fruit tends to flatten the drupelets in a photograph. The hand-drawn digital illustration keeps the colour of each stage separate and readable.

Where does a blackberry print work on a wall?

A blackberry print suits a kitchen, a dining room, a cottage-style room or a woodland-themed bedroom. The deep purple-black fruit against green leaves reads richly in a dark wood frame, and a natural wood frame makes it warmer and more rural. It belongs to the Mediterranean Table collection, and it sits among the wider botanical art prints. In the photograph below, it hangs with the cherry and juniper prints in a sage-green kitchen.

Fine-art print →

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a blackberry a berry?

Not in the botanical sense. A blackberry is an aggregate fruit made of many drupelets, each a tiny stone fruit with its own seed. The everyday word berry covers it anyway. True berries, such as grapes, have a single fruit wall around several seeds.

What is the difference between a blackberry and a raspberry?

Both belong to the genus Rubus, and both are aggregates of drupelets. The difference lies in the core. A blackberry comes off the plant with its white core, the receptacle, inside it. A raspberry leaves the core behind on the plant and is hollow when picked.

Why are some blackberries red?

Red blackberries are unripe. The fruit passes from green to red to purple-black as it ripens, and it is ready when it turns glossy black, then dull, and detaches easily. Bramble fruit does not get sweeter after picking, so red berries stay sour.

Is a blackberry the same as a bramble?

Bramble is the common name for the plant, and blackberry is the name of its fruit. The word bramble also covers raspberries and their relatives. Rubus fruticosus is used for the common blackberry bushes of Europe, which are really a group of related species.

How is this print made, and how does it reach me?

There are two formats. The digital download is a high-resolution file that you print yourself, at home or at a print shop; no physical item is shipped. The fine-art print is printed to order on archival paper or canvas, framed or unframed, in sizes from small prints to over 150 cm (60 inches), and delivered to your door.