Smooth blackberry

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Survives zone 3 through 8

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Also called American dewberry — unusual among brambles for being genuinely thornless, with almost completely smooth stems. One of the most highly regarded wild blackberries for flavour: sweet, juicy, richly flavoured, up to 2.5 cm long.

Hardiness

Zone 3–8

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

July–Aug

Mature size

2.1–3 m tall, 1.8–3.7 m wide

Light

Full sun to part shade

Soil pH

5.5–7.5 (mildly acid to mildly alkaline)

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Eastern North America, including the mountains of North Carolina and eastern Canada — open woodland, thickets, mountain ridges and disturbed ground in cool, moist climates.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

2 yrs

Growth speed

Medium

Spacing

200 cm (79 in) apart — about 4 m² (43 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate, with three to five narrow pointed leaflets, smooth and bright green — the canes are notably nearly thornless, which is where the name smooth blackberry comes from.

Root system

A perennial crown and shallow spreading root system in the top 30–40 cm, carrying biennial canes: each cane grows one year, fruits the next, then dies. New shoots come from buds on both the crown and the roots, which is why a bramble returns from root fragments left after digging and why it is so hard to remove once settled.

Fruit description

Sweet, juicy, richly flavoured, up to 2.5 cm

Propagation

Division or stem cuttings.

Pollination

Self-fertile and bee-pollinated, and facultatively apomictic — much of the seed is produced without fertilisation, so seedlings often come near-true to the parent. That apomixis is why this group is described as hundreds of near-identical microspecies rather than a handful of variable ones.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.