Monday, September 29, 2014

Mystery Berries

Do any of you know what these are?


When we first moved onto our land and started getting the garden established, we accepted plant donations from anyone and everyone. Berry canes were an especially sought-after item, being as we are berry-loving fiends, and lots of people shared and we also got them from freecycle. Happy times!

But you see, I am dreadfully disorganised, and I didn't label anything, so now we have some plants we aren't quite sure of, including the berry that we are enjoying by the handful on these glorious spring days.

The plant is pretty big, at around 1m tall, and is spreading out quite happily. It started flowering in early winter, and these berries are now daily fare, when no other berries are around. Cool!
They're certainly raspberry-like, though they're definitely not raspberries - the little 'globes' (if you know what I mean) are way smaller than a raspberry's, and there are heaps more of them. They're also a lot firmer than a raspberry, and they have lots of little tiny crunchy seeds.

The flavour is somewhere between a raspberry and a strawberry, and they're definitely delicious, though ever-so-slightly more on the tart side than the sweet side.

Any ideas?

We don't really mind if we never find out what they are - we're happily munching them, and the birds don't seem to notice them (or are confused by all the bright red kennedia flowers on the vine that is sprawling all over the berry bush). But of course we're always curious!


7 comments:

  1. I think it's an Atherton Raspberry

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  2. Hmm, I was just on the diggers website over the weekend & think they had some berries like that - go check them out, they may have the answer there somewhere (hopefully), it's diggers.com.au ... I just warn you though, the site is slightly addictive & I ended up spending $75 on it!

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  3. They are most definitely Atherton Raspberries! I love them! And they are native!

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  4. Yes yes! They're Atherton Raspberries! And now I remember - we got them from our friends at Happy Earth. Here's a link to them writing about them - http://www.happyearth.com.au/atherton-raspberry/. But now I;m intrigued to know what the other berries are that we thought were native, because they're different again... Mysterious....

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  5. There's quite a few different native raspberries out there :) Mmmm..raspberries...(cue drooling).

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  6. Oh yay, so glad to see you are getting berries from the Atherton Raspberry bush we gave you! Yes there are a few different kinds of native raspberries, but we reckon these Atherton ones are the best! The bush does tend to send up suckers and spread, so hopefully it's in a spot where it can do that and give you lots more berries! Enjoy those berries! xxx

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  7. the're rubus rosifolius, wild raspberry. they grow in the tropics. we have them here in the philippines

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