_Rubus villosus_
_Flowers_--White, 1 in. or less across, in terminal raceme-like
clusters. Calyx deeply 5-parted, persistent; 5 large petals; stamens and
carpels numerous, the latter inserted on a pulpy receptacle. _Stem:_ 3
to 10 ft. high, woody, furrowed, curved, armed with stout, recurved
prickles. _Leaves:_ Compounded of 3 to 5 ovate, saw-edged leaflets, the
end one stalked, all hairy beneath. _Fruit:_ Firmly attached to the
receptacle; nearly black, oblong juicy berries 1 in. long or less,
hanging in clusters. Ripe, July-August.
_Preferred Habitat_--Dry soil, thickets, fence-rows, old fields,
waysides. Low altitudes.
_Flowering Season_--May-June.
_Distribution_--New England to Florida, and far westward.
“There was a man of our town,
And he was wondrous wise,
He jumped into a bramble bush”--
If we must have poetical associations for every flower, Mother Goose
furnishes several.
But for the practical mind this plant’s chief interest lies in the fact
that from its wild varieties the famous Lawton and Kittatinny
blackberries have been derived. The late Peter Henderson used to tell
how the former came to be introduced. A certain Mr. Secor found an
unusually fine blackberry growing wild in a hedge at New Rochelle, New
York, and removed it to his garden, where it increased apace. But not
even for a gift could he induce a neighbor to relieve him of the
superfluous bushes, so little esteemed were blackberries in his day.
However, a shrewd lawyer named Lawton at length took hold of it,
exhibited the fruit, advertised it cleverly, and succeeded in pocketing
a snug little fortune from the sale of the prolific plants. Another fine
variety of the common wild blackberry, which was discovered by a
clergyman at the edge of the woods on the Kittatinny Mountains in New
Jersey, has produced fruit under skilled cultivation that still remains
the best of its class. When clusters of blossoms and fruit in various
stages of green, red, and black hang on the same bush, few ornaments in
Nature’s garden are more decorative.