Dewberries: The Arcane History of a Bramble

Clambering through the old lilacs in my yard are fruit canes so wild and untamed that picking their berries is nearly impossible due to their impenetrable tangle of thorns. The purple-black fruit is so delicious and sweet, there is scarcely another berry comparable in its uniquely wild flavor, and one can count oneself extremely privileged to have the pleasure of eating one before the birds discover they are ripe. I didn’t have any idea where this plant came from or what variety it might be. That is, before stumbling upon the arcane history of its arduous but silent journey to fame.

My mother always referred to them as a dewberry and would set out with a wicker basket early in the day to pick the tiny, cap-like berries. They mature well before the red raspberry or upright blackberry canes have borne fruit, and the taste is far superior.

We live in an 1800s captain’s house, and I imagined that the dewberry, like other unusual and rare heirloom varieties of plants we have found here, may have somehow survived from a gardener’s planting long ago, or perhaps it is a hardy native plant that snuck into my garden, or one whose seeds blew in on a wind or were carried here by birds. But many friends I have shown the plant to have said they also have a similar berry growing in their yards. Referring to it as a blackberry, a thimble berry, a loganberry, boysenberry, or even a black raspberry, no one else had ever called it a dewberry. I went to see their bramble berries, but none was quite like mine and each was different from the other. So, I became determined (even obsessed) with identifying this plant beyond its genus Rubus. I needed a name, a species and variety after having chosen to write this article about the so-called “dewberry.” I almost had to abandon the idea, as it was turning into a story without a story, since I couldn’t definitively identify the subject at hand.

As I searched further, I discovered that this plant’s puzzling identity not only baffled me but has baffled botanists for centuries. Its perplexingly variable forms compounded its identity-making species classification. There are such great variations in the subgenus of this plant that it became one of the grand challenges of systematic botany. My search uncovered a long-running conundrum of nomenclature, a confusion which goes back as far as Linnaeus (1701-1778, founder of modern systematic botany) and Darwin, and it still exists today.

When the first colonists stepped onto our shores, they were met with not only unfamiliar native peoples but also unknown native plants. Though they had brought with them many seeds and plants from the old world, many of those plants failed. The colonists needed to tame an unknown land and use what the new world had to offer. They needed to cultivate a new life, new plant crops and learn to harvest the wild and unfamiliar.

The somewhat familiar, untamable dewberry met them at the shore in a tangle of underbrush. They knew this plant as a blackberry, since the hedges of Europe were covered with similar thorny brambles. And although many of the bushes sometimes produced excellent fruit, they were all too common and the bushes too vicious and wayward to attract the cultivator. The dewberry of America was to them much what the brambles of England had been, simply a wild berry to destroy when possible and replace with something better. So, this free gift from the earth, untaxed and easy to obtain, would be totally overlooked for centuries. As time went on however, this gratuitous feast of nature provided for the beginnings of an infant industry as small settlements turned into big cities, leading to the idea of taming this wild beast for city markets and profit.

Originally, when North America was settled by Europeans, most of the wild dewberries could be classified into a few relatively distinct species, and though there were many in the wild, they were nowhere as abundant as they later became. Once the forests were cut and the land was cleared for pasture and meadow, the wild dewberry found the perfect place to thrive and multiply, covering open fields with their prickly brambles. These open clearings of forest and pasture gave the opportunity for seedlings of different wild species (including the wild blackberry) to grow side by side, as they had not when dense virgin forest covered the land, and the primarily self-sterile berries cross-pollinated as they had rarely done before. Many diverse hybrids began to appear, and the wind and insects have continued to cross-pollinate them for the last 400 years.

The dewberry is a strictly American fruit, not the bramble of Europe, and was only very briefly domesticated during first attempts in the early 1800s, but quickly abandoned because of its unmanageable habits. It has only been within the last 100 years or so that the dewberry and blackberry have attracted much attention from horticulturists and plant breeders.

The domestication began initially by gathering wild plants displaying many different characteristics from the woods and growing them in gardens. Later seeds were harvested and planted in greenhouses, and when large enough to transplant in open fields, were set in single hills four feet apart where they remained, with care and pruning for four years, until the true character of each had developed. Growers selected plants with the largest berries and strongest constitution, and destroyed the weaker, and continued to repeat the process again and again. Those plants that survived the transition from free and easy existence in the forest to the cultivated field, and displayed desirable qualities, were chosen for seed.

In the meantime, a profusion of varieties had appeared by the mid to late 1800s, and nurserymen began to give names to their plants and present the best types with the largest berries and hardiest constitution to the public. Many of these had been crossed repeatedly with both the blackberry and raspberry in an attempt to curb their wild habits and produce larger berries. A Captain Lovett, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, was determined to cultivate the wild dewberry long before its popularity. After repeated failures, he gave up in despair around 1840, and surrendered this wild gypsy of the fruits to its native haunts, deeming it untamable.

But soon after, the “Dorchester” (his first named variety of dewberry) was exhibited before the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Not by Lovett, but rather by a man named Eliphalet Thayer in 1841. This introduction of the new “cultivated” wild berry and another soon to follow (the “New Rochelle”) did not receive the praise one might imagine. In order to be picked ripe, the berries needed to be black and nearly falling off the bush. Not understanding this, eager growers gathered and ate the berries before they were ripe, while red or green and extremely sour. Moreover, as the conditions for their culture were little understood - most wild blackberries are woodland plants fruiting best in leaf mold at the edge of forests and along streams in sandy soil - this led to frequent failures in the field or unsatisfactory results. The plant’s natural tendency to persist and spread, aided by their unmerciful thorns, rendered them a terror to many timid gardeners.

Nevertheless, by the late 1800s the spark was there, and the berries were becoming better accepted with the help of the Agricultural Society’s introductions. On one memorable occasion, a Dr. Brinckle of Philadelphia gave the most sensational “fruit party” that had ever been seen in this country at a fruit-growers’ exhibition. Blackberries, dewberries and the crosses of both were combined with the very recherché cookery of Philadelphia’s best restaurateurs of the time, and paired with the best American wines. A guest list including the most elite of the area’s citizens, gardeners and horticulturists formed a scene claimed to be as had never been witnessed. The occasion not only proved a success for the dewberry but served to make people better acquainted with each other while promoting the cause of the fruit’s progress.

In spite of all the attention given to the berries’ genus, Rubus, attempts to classify the wild dewberry, black raspberry and blackberry into botanical groups was neglected. During this time of fervent dewberry improvement, few records were kept of their breeding programs. This led to the eventual obscuring of the actual lineage of these plants, accounting for the present-day confusion within the genus of the dewberry and blackberry. All of which are nearly all derived from at least two or more species.

By the 1900s, the confusion was real, as expressed in the description by a leading horticulturist L.H. Bailey (1858-1954). “The prostrate or trailing blackberry, which may spread over brush or small shrubs in the wild state, is sometimes called ‘dewberry’ and this erect untrained ‘blackberry’ may reach a height of 10 feet.” In other words, trailing blackberries are dewberries, and upright blackberries are blackberries. He also placed the loganberry, boysenberry and youngberry all in the same group considered as blackberries. Say what?

The botanist made little to no distinction between dewberries and blackberries. Rather, it was the fruit-grower and breeder giving name to the crossed varieties he presented to the public. Rubus still remains a problematic genus and botanists today still do not agree on its classification.

So here it was, finally put into words, a dewberry is a blackberry and a blackberry is a dewberry and there are black raspberries too. Black raspberries grow as sprawling brambles also, and their canes can grow up to six feet long and generally arch and have sharp curved thorns. Their heritage will never be untwined. At this point in my bramble saga it looks like there is no need to give my mystery plant a name after all; it would only stir up the botanist’s pot of nomenclature, unless perhaps I name it myself, and likewise you name yours. All in all, if you see a blackberry growing on a plant with arching lazy stems that bend to the ground and root, you can be pretty certain that it’s a dewberry (blackberries most often have stiff , upright stems that rarely take root at tips), but then again, it just might be a black raspberry.

Somehow these wild berries manage to get along just fine without us. Yet, with just a little preseason care you have a pretty good shot at taming that wild volunteer that may have crept into your yard. During the winter or very early spring, trim it up by removing dead canes, leaving the colorful red/blue fruit bearing ones, to get it somewhat under control for an incredible early summer harvest. Late winter or very early spring is also the time to tie its wandering stems to a trellis, post or espalier wire, the post method being preferred. Topping off the long canes at a manageable height of about 5 feet will induce the plant to send out productive side branching that should be cut back when they are about 12 inches long. Add a yearly addition of a good topdressing of compost.

Dewberries and blackberries can set fruit using their own pollen, but the flowers do require pollinators, such as native bees, honeybees or the wind to transfer pollen on the same plant. Although the plants are self-pollinating, it is recommended that you plant several different compatible varieties of berries, ones which will flower at the same time, to encourage cross pollination, which in turn will produce more seed and bigger fruit.

Growing your own dewberries and blackberries is the only way to really appreciate the fruit. Those who do not like blackberries (the ones presumably having been bought at the grocery store) have probably never eaten a ripe one. No berry has the tendency to deteriorate more readily, and what is offered at the store was undoubtedly picked prematurely. The blackberry is not ripe simply because it is black; it must be soft, and it must drop into the hand when the canes are shaken.

The dewberry/blackberry crosses, though perhaps one of the last commercial crops brought into cultivation from the wild, is today one of our most desired and profitable crops. I don’t think I’ll ever look at a cultivated blackberry the same again. Although we can thank the dewberry for its contributions in the development of many a fine cultivar of stunningly huge modern blackberries, the wild dewberry is still the sweetest berry of all. It is still as wayward and wily as ever, never having succumbed to the temptation of cultivation, and just may steal its wild self into a neglected corner of your garden.