Thursday 7 August 2014

Brambles - Part One

My all-time favourite fruit is the blackberry, or bramble, and already the fruits are beginning to ripen, albeit a few weeks early. In September I usually use them to make pies, crumbles, purees and jams, and I'll make a post about that later. But for now I want to rewind a bit and take a look at the flowers. Brambles grow along the sides of roads, lanes and railway lines and on waste land as well, and as a result they tend to get a bit ignored, but this year I've been noticing just how attractive and varied the flowers are.


Looking at the flowers in close up they are amazingly pretty. A soft pinky-mauve, the petals look as if they're made from crumpled silk.


There are lots of stamens, very much like the centre of a rose (they are a member of  the rose family), and the sumptuously wrinkled petals remind me of faded vintage fabrics. 


We have in our garden a thornless, cultivated variety, and its flowers are very different with seven elongated white petals.


Even bramble stems are attractive. The thorns are very sharp, as anyone who's tried to reach into a bramble bush to pick the berries will confirm, but the stem is covered in a soft down and is a soft shade of pink.


Last week when we were at the river I was very happy to find this lovely bramble bush with flowers which were a deep shade of purple. The purple is a pre-taste of the berries themselves, and I like it very much .


I looked more closely at the flowers.


There are masses of stamens, and the centre is already beginning to form into a little blackberry before the petals fall.


I can't wait for the blackberry season to get going, and am so looking forward to the smell of blackberries cooking in my kitchen. 


4 comments:

  1. We love blackberries here too, but the best part is definitely picking them in the first place :)
    Jillxo

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    1. Yes, you're right - the berries are well worth waiting for! :)
      Cathy x

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  2. We love them here too, where my husband works, the car park is surrounded by blackberry bushes. He picks them daily, freezes them and then during winter makes the most delicious pies, the whole house fills with the scent as they are cooking. Gorgeous photos.

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    1. Thank you :) How lovely to have them close by where you can pick them daily. I like to freeze them too - it's like having a treasure trove in your freezer :)
      Cathy x

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