The Latest Raspberry

Posted by Violet Snow Oct 7, 2007

It’s one of my favorite fruits, with a sweet-sour tang that follows an exotic flower, five-petalled like other rose family plants. Most raspberries have white flowers with narrow petals, about the size of a quarter, blooming in mid-spring. Thimbleberry has overlapping magenta petals on flowers that are two or three inches in diameter, with a ring of yellow stamens in the middle. They have a long blooming season, beginning in early summer and extending into fall.

There are often still flowers on the plants when the fruits start to ripen. For some reason, I find the berries fascinating, maybe because they are different from regular raspberries, equally delicious, and yet much less well-known. Also, they have that concave shape, like a tiny bowl. The little cells, each containing a seed, are smaller and more tightly packed than those of conventional raspberries.

The berry is mounted on a white surface rather than a stem. When you take the berry away from the plant, it separates cleanly, leaving behind an elegant circle surrounded by five bracts, the leaflike parts beneath the flowers and fruits.

The leaves and stems are also distinctive. Instead of the usual compound leaves, thimbleberry has large, five-lobed leaves, almost like those of a maple tree but without teeth. The reddish-brown canes (arching stems) are thorned, like other raspberries, but the thorns are denser and softer.

It’s such a delight to come across a cluster of thimbleberries late in the season, when you least expect it. For information on other autumn berries, see Fall Fruits in the Wild.