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| Raspberry | ||||||||||||||
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Raspberries | ||||||||||||||
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| Rubus idaeus |
The Raspberry or Red Raspberry, (Rubus idaeus) is a plant that produces a tart, sweet, red composite fruit (not a true berry) in late summer or early autumn. The fruit is similar to that of the blackberry, but is smaller, softer, and of course a different colour. It grows typically in forest clearings or fields, particularly where fire or wood-cutting has produced open space for colonization by this opportunistic colonizer of disturbed soil. As a cultivated plant, it is easy to grow and has a tendency to spread unless cut back.
Two types are commercially available: the wild-type summer bearing, that produces an abundance of fruit on second-year canes within a relatively short period in midsummer, and double- or "ever"- bearing plants, which also bear a few fruit on first-year canes in the autumn, as well as the summer crop on second-year canes. Raspberries can be cultivated from USDA hardiness zones 9 to 4.
A golden Raspberry, which is pale yellow, has been selected by horticulturalists.
The black raspberry, also called a blackcap, is not the same plant, being a cultivar (usually) of Rubus occidentalis, a North American species. Several other non-cultivated Rubus species are also called raspberries.