Blackberry (Rubus argutus)

Also known as: sawtooth blackberry, southern blackberry, tall blackberry

⚠️ Safety note: Pick only fully black berries that detach easily; red berries are unripe and tart. The canes are thorny, so wear long sleeves and gloves, and watch for chiggers and ticks when picking in brambles.

Quick Facts

• Edible parts: Ripe black berries
• Part: fruit
• Season: Fruit ripens late spring to early summer (roughly May to June) in Florida.
• Type: shrub
• Where in Florida: Statewide, along woodland edges, fence rows, and disturbed ground from the Panhandle to South Florida.

How to Recognize It

A bramble of arching, thorny canes with compound leaves of three to five toothed leaflets. White five-petaled flowers bloom in spring. The aggregate berries ripen from red to glossy black and pull easily from the core when ripe.

How to Eat It

Eat fully ripe berries raw; also classic in jam, cobbler, and wine.

Abundant; take what you will use, and avoid trampling the first-year canes, which bear next year's crop.

Florida has several native blackberries and dewberries, all with the same classic aggregate fruit, and all are edible when fully ripe and black.

🌱 Fun fact: A blackberry is an aggregate fruit: each berry is a cluster of tiny individual fruitlets called drupelets, and every drupelet holds its own seed.

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🌿 Keep exploring

More Florida natives worth meeting:

• Allegheny chinquapin (Castanea pumila)
• Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)
• Chickasaw plum (Prunus angustifolia)