Blackberry (Rubus species)

Common names: Blackberry, European Blackberry

Taxonomic name: Rubus species

Family: Rosaceae

Flowering time: Spring – Summer

Uses: Food, stomach complaints, diarrhoea

Area of origin: Europe

Warnings: None

Uses

Blackberries are well known for their delicious berries, they’re also full of vitamins C and K, manganese and both soluble and insoluble fibre that will help keep you regular. They grow in dense, thorny patches that don’t want to let you go when you’re picking. They seem to have an evil intelligence too, ripening first the berries that are just beyond one’s reach, causing you to edge always further into the patch’s prickly embrace.

The vitamins and tannins in Blackberries make them useful for wound healing with the vitamin C helping fight infection while the tannins and vitamin K help with clotting.

Beside helping heal external wounds, an infusion of Blackberry leaves can stop diarrhoea in its tracks. When the high levels of tannins in the leaves hit the intestinal lining, they cause it to tone and tighten.

It’s a sure way to stop you when nothing else will.

Description

Scrambling, shrubby plant with long canes and lots of thorns. Leaves have 3 to 5 leaflets and are borne on prickly stalks.White or pale pink flowers with 5 sepals and petals and many stamen. Fleshy fruit changes from green through red to black as they ripen. Flowering time