BRAMBLE - Rubus sp. (Blackberry)
FAMILY: Rosaceae. Very common.
The flowers are white or pink, (spring).
The bramble produces an edible fruit, the blackberry. The red fruits are 0.5 to 3 cm in diameter and turn bluish-black when ripe, around September.
The common bramble is a perennial, more or less thorny sub-shrub that varies in height from 1 to 7 m. It is very common in temperate regions. Its woody stump produces annual shoots, called turions, which are angular in cross-section.
Several thousand seeds can be produced per m2 of bramble. The seeds are dispersed by mammals or birds consuming the blackberries. The seed cores follow the intestinal transit and, undigested, return to the earth in animal excrement.
The germination rate is 2 to 3 times lower (just 10%) if the seed has not followed this intestinal transit.
