BRAMBLE or BLACKBERRY
(the Rubus fruticosus aggregate)
Family: Rosaceae
The joys of blackberrying form fond childhood memories for
many of us. The patient parental urgings to put at least a few berries into the
family baskets rather than straight into our mouths, the inevitable scratches
from the hooked bramble prickles, the infuriating ‘trip-snares’ formed by the
brambles arching over and rooting at the tip and, above all, the unlimited
supplies of juicy fruits that come in wide array of distinctive forms and
flavours. Even as children, we quickly learned to recognise from a distance the
brambles that produced the best fruits and those where it was pointless even to
contemplate searching for fruits worth harvesting.
 |
Blackberries gathered for immediate
consumption. (Etchingham, August 2003)
|
The taxonomy of Rubus species
is extremely complex. A botanist called William Watson spent much of his life researching
the genus and in his Handbook of the Rubi
of Great Britain and Ireland he describes some 286 species (Watson 2013). The
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species states: “The taxonomy of Rubus species is very challenging. Rubus
fruticosus comprises an aggregate of over 329 closely-related microspecies
in Rubus subgenus Rubus, most of which are facultatively
apomictic”. Each microspecies breeds true[i],
just like normal species, but in this case it is the result of producing viable
seeds without fertilisation (termed ‘apomixis’), so the same genes are present as
in the parent plant—similar to cuttings or other vehicles for vegetative propagation.
 |
The young shoot-buds of brambles
make a great wayside snack in spring-time.
(Hailsham, March 2009)
|
Brambles are ubiquitous throughout Britain and Ireland (for
distribution maps see Online Atlas of the British and Irish Flora).
They grow in waste places, hedgerows, roadsides, clearings in woodland, riverbanks,
abandoned pasture, and on unmanaged land in a wide range of other locations. In
many parts of the world they are considered to be invasive weeds that are
extremely difficult to eradicate (for details see: CABI Invasive Species
Compendium).
 |
Blackberries in different stages of
ripeness. (Hailsham, September 2008)
|
Blackberries grow in clusters at the end of older shoots
that die after two or three years cropping. In his book ‘Food for Free’, Richard Mabey (1992: 80) explains: “the lowest berry - right at the tip of the
stalk – is the first to ripen, and is the sweetest and fattest of all. Eat it
raw. A few weeks later, the other berries near the end ripen; these are less
juicy, but are still good for jams and pies. The small berries further back on
the stalk do not ripen until October. They are hard and slightly bitter and are
only really useful if cooked with some other fruit.” Autumn pudding in
which blackberries are combined with other fruits such as bullaces, sloes,
elderberries and crab apples is a delicious way to make use of the end of
season fruits. Blackberries can also be used to make jams and syrups and a tea is
made from an infusion of the dried leaves (Plants For A Future [PFAF] database).
 |
Edible shoot-tips that snap off
crisply and whose spines are still soft.
(Ardeche Gorge, 2006)
|
Nutritional and medicinal
properties of Rubus fruticosus
Rubus fruticosus
plants (e.g., fruits, leaves, shoots, roots, stems) have many nutritional and medicinal
properties. Blackberries are high in vitamins A, C and E, and are a rich source
of potassium, carbohydrates (mostly in the form of sugars: fructose, glucose,
sucrose) and dietary fibre; the fruits and other plant parts also contain high
quantities of anthocyanins[ii] and other
phenolic compounds (Kaume, et al. 2012; Verma et al. 2014; Zia-Ul-Haq et al.
2014). They can be used in antimicrobial, anticancer, antidysentery,
antidiarrheal, antidiabetic and antioxidant remedies.
Prehistoric and historic usage
Rubus fruticosus remains
are common on British and European archaeological sites of all periods (for
references see Schultz-Motel 1994: 42). As has already been recorded for many
of the soft fruits presented in the blog, blackberries are commonly found preserved
waterlogged form in anaerobic conditions, for example, in pits containing
faecal remains (e.g., the Worcester barrel-latrine, Greig 1981; see also:
McCobb et al. 2001) and rubbish (e.g., the ‘Mirror Pit’ in Ferrara, Mazzanti et
al. 2005). Amongst the earliest finds of fruits and other plant parts are those
recorded at the Swiss and German Neolithic lakeside pile-dwelling settlements (‘Pfahlbauten’) where rubbish routinely deposited
in the lakes was preserved by waterlogging in a near pristine state thus providing
evidence of a range of household activities (Colledge and Conolly 2014; Jacomet
2006; see also: UNESCO - Welterbe Die Seite
Prähistorische Pfahlbauten um die Alpen). Several authors note the disparity
between quantities of waterlogged versus charred blackberry remains found on
prehistoric and early historic sites: the former are always greater (e.g., Colledge
and Conolly 2014: table 4; Bosi et al. 2009: table 2; Bouby et al. 1999: 61, table
2; Brombacher and Hecker 2015: table 2; Hosch and Jacomet 2001: table 3; Jacomet
2006: table 3).
There has been a long tradition of using Rubus fruticosus for its medicinal
properties; Hummer (2010) notes that the efficacy of brambles was referred to by
early Greek and Roman physicians, and is also alluded to in Chinese and Indian Ayurvedic
traditional medicines. Hippocrates (in a treatise dating between c. 500-370 BC)
describes how to use the stems and leaves soaked in wine as “an astringent poultice on wounds and in
difficulties of childbirth” (Hummer 2010: 1587-1588, citing Littre 1979). In a later work, De Materia Medica[iii]
(written in about 65 AD), Dioscorides states that a decoction of the stems
of brambles can be used to dye hair (see previous reference to anthocyanins),
to stop diarrhea when drunk, and to cure bites of a snake referred to as the prester[iv]
(Hummer and Janick 2007: 92; Hummer 2010: 1588). Dioscorides also notes that chewed
leaves: “strengthen the gums and heal the thrush;
plastered on, they keep in control shingles, treat head scurf, prolapses of the
eyes, callous lumps, and hemorrhoids, and they are suitable to apply ground up
on those with stomach and heart ailments” (ibid.). In the Anglo Saxon herbal the Leechbook of Bald[v] (dated to c. 920 AD and written in Winchester by several authors) use
of bramble roots is cited as a cure for dysentery but only if certain Christian
recitations are sung: “take the newer root, delve it up, cut up nine chips
with the left hand and sing three times the Miserere mei Deus and nine times
the Mater Noster then take mugwort and everlasting, boil these three worts and
the chips in milk till they get red, then let
the man sip at night fasting a pound dish full….” (for full details of the remedy
see: Hummer and Janick 2007: 98).
 |
Ripe Blackberries.
(Etchingham, August 2003)
|
Bibliography
Bouby, L., Leroy, F. and Carozza, L. 1999. Food plants from
late Bronze Age lagoon sites in Languedoc, southern France: reconstruction of
farming economy and environment. Vegetation
History and Archaeobotany 8: 53-69.
Bosi, G., Mercuri, A.M., Guarnieri, C. and Mazzanti, M.B. 2009. Luxury
food and ornamental plants at the 15th century A.D. Renaissance
court of the Este family (Ferrara, northern Italy). Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 18: 389-402.
Brombacher, C. and Hecker, D. 2015. Agriculture, food and
environment during Merovingian times: plant remains from three early medieval
sites in northwestern Switzerland. Vegetation
History and Archaeobotany 24: 331-342.
CABI Invasive Species Compendium 2018. https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/47995
[accessed: 29.05.18]
Colledge, S. and Conolly, J. 2014. Wild plant use in European Neolithic
subsistence economies: a formal assessment of preservation bias in
archaeobotanical assemblages and the implications for understanding changes in
plant diet breadth. Quaternary Science
Reviews 101: 193-206.
Greig, J. 1981. The investigation of a Medieval
barrel-latrine from Worcester. Journal of
Archaeological Science 8: 265-282.
Hosch, S. and Jacomet, S. 2001. New aspects of
archaeobotanical research in Central European Neolithic lake dwelling sites. Environmental Archaeology 6: 59-71.
Hummer, K.E. 2010. Rubus
pharmacology: antiquity to present. HortScience
45(11): 1587-1591.
Hummer, K.E. and Janick, J. 2007. Rubus iconography: antiquity to the renaissance. Acta Horticulturae 759: 89-106.
Jacomet, S. 2006.
Plant economy of the northern Alpine lake dwellings – 3500-2400 cal. BC. Environmental Archaeology 11(1): 65-85.
Kaume, L., Howard, L.R. and Devareddy, L. 2012. The
blackberry fruit: a review on its composition and chemistry, metabolism and
bioavailability, and health benefits. Journal
of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 60: 5716-5727,
Littre, E. 1979. Oeuvres
completes d’Hippocrate. Traduction Nouvelle avec le texte Grec en regard. Adolf
M. Hakkert, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Mabey, R. 1992. Food for Free. Harper Collins, London.
Mazzanti,
M.B., Bosi, G., Mercuri, A.M., Accorsi, C.A. and Guarnieri, C. 2005. Plant use
in a city in Northern Italy during the late Mediaeval and Renaissance periods:
results of the archaeobotanical investigation of “The Mirror Pit” (14th-15th
century A.D.) in Ferrara. Vegetation
History and Archaeobotany 14: 442-452.
McCobb, L.M.E., Briggs,
D.E.G., Evershed, R.P., Hall, A.R. and Hall, R.A. 2001. Preservation of fossil
seeds from a 10th century AD cess pit at Coppergate, York. Journal
of Archaeological Science 28: 929-940.
Online Atlas of the
British and Irish Flora. Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland. https://www.brc.ac.uk/plantatlas/ [accessed 24.05.18]
Plants For A Future (PFAF). http://www.pfaf.org/ [accessed: 29.05.18]
Schultz-Motel, J. 1994. Literature on archaeological remains
of cultivated plants (1991/1992). Vegetation
History and Archaeobotany 3: 33-61.
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2017-3 http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/summary/203455/1
[accessed: 24.05.18]
UNESCO - Welterbe Die Seite Prähistorische Pfahlbauten um die Alpen
2017-2018. https://www.palafittes.org/homepage.html [accessed: 01.06.18]
Verma, R., Gangrade, T., Punasiya, R. and Ghulaxe, C. 2014. Rubus fruticosus (blackberry) use as an
herbal medicine. Pharmacognosy Reviews
8(16): 101-104.
Watson, W.C.R. 2013. Handbook
of the Rubi of Great Britain and Ireland. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge. Reissue edition. [available online at: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316530184]
Zia-Ul-Haq, M., Riaz, M., De Feo, V.,
Jaafar, H.Z.E. and Moga, M. 2014. Rubus
fruticosus L.: constituents, biological activities and health related uses.
Molecules 19: 10998-11029.
[i] For definition see: https://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/True_breeding [accessed: 24.05.18]
[ii] The high anthocyanin
content of fruits, leaves and stems makes them a good source of blue/purple
dye.
[iii] For details see: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/aconite/materiamedica.html [accessed: 31.05.18]
[iv] For details see:
https://abookofcreatures.com/2016/02/19/prester/ [accessed: 31.05.16]
No comments:
Post a Comment