Dewberry, Rubus flagellaris, Native Minnesota Wildflower plant, Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

	Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden
	Common Name	Scientific Name	Plant Family	Garden Location	Prime Season
	Dewberry	Rubus flagellaris Willd.	Rose (Rosaceae)	Upland	Late Spring to Early Summer
Other names and notes	(Northern Dewberry) This plant is a very low growing shrub with canes usually less than 8 inches long (but can grow much longer in the right environment) that can root at the tips. The canes have very small but stout thorns that have a wide base and a bit of a hook. The flower resembles others in the Rubus genus with five white petals and five green sepals. The petals can look wrinkled. Flowers are on stalks in a cluster of up to five. The leaves are divided into 3 doubly toothed leaflets, sometimes 5. The terminal leaflet has a short stalk (petiole). Each full leaf has a long stalk to the stem. The fruit matures from green to red to black at maturity. Besides stem rooting, the plant will reseed itself.




Below left: Green berries of late June. Below Right: Fruit turning red in mid-July. Final maturity color is black.

Below: The flower sepals with their pointed tips.	Below: The terminal leaflet has a short stalk (petiole), the side leaflets are sessile.

Notes: This plant was not listed on Martha Crone's 1951 inventory of plants in the Garden at that time, but was present by the time of the 1986 census. It is widespread in the eastern half of the United States and Canada. In Minnesota it is native but reported on the Vascular Plants Of Minnesota Annotated Checklist as being a " recognized taxon for Minnesota; but species limits defined differently among authors. The common view of this taxon (Alice et al. in press) is of an extremely polymorphic taxon when considered across its range in the US and Canada, with some characters subject to environmental variation and intergradation common among the variants." The older checklists shown it as present in only eleven widely scattered counties however, the current DNR census does not list it as present in any county.

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References: Plant characteristics are generally from sources 15, 16, 30, 31, 33, W2 & W3. Distribution principally from W2 and also 31, 34 and W1. Planting history generally from 1, 4 & 4a. Other sources by specific reference. See Reference List for details.

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