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Virginia Raspberry

Purple-flowering or Virginia Raspberry

Rubus odoratus

Flowers - Royal purple or bluish pink, showy, fragrant, 1 to 2 in. broad, loosely clustered at top of stem. Calyx sticky-hairy, deeply 5-parted, with long, pointed tips; corolla of 5 rounded petals; stamens and pistils very numerous.

Stem: 3 to 5 ft. high, erect, branched, shrubby, bristly, not prickly. Leaves: Alternate, petioled, 3 to 5 lobed, middle lobe largest, and all pointed; saw-edged lower leaves immense.

Fruit: A depressed red berry, scarcely edible.

Preferred Habitat - Rocky woods, dells, shady roadsides.

Flowering Season - June-August.

Distribution - Northern Canada south to Georgia, westward to Michigan and Tennessee.

To be an unappreciated, unloved relative of the exquisite wild rose, with which this flower is so often likened, must be a similar misfortune to being the untalented son of a great man, or the unhappy author of a successful first book never equalled in later attempts.

But where the bright blossoms of the Virginia raspberry burst forth above the roadside tangle and shady woodland dells, even those who despise magenta see beauty in them where abundant green tones all discordant notes into harmony.

Purple, as we of to-day understand the color, the flower is not; but rather the purple of ancient Orientals. On cool, cloudy days the petals are a deep rose that fades into bluish pink when the sun is hot.