Common Name: Wineberry, Wine raspberry, Japanese wineberry, Purple-leaved blackberry, Hairy bramble – Wine is the color of the tiny hairs that cover the stem and carpels, a dark red similar to that attributed to red/burgundy grapes. Berry is a general term applied to any small fruit. It originally derived from the Gothic word weinabasi, a type of grape, evolving to the Old English berie. Berry is one of only two native words for fruit, referring to anything that was like a grape. The other is apple, given to larger, pome-like fruits. Weinabasi à Wineberry.
Scientific Name: Rubus phoenicolasius – Rubus is Latin for “bramble-bush” of which blackberry was the most well known of the many types of prickly shrubs that comprise the genus. The species name means purple-colored. [1] The Greek word for the color purple is phoinik, which was also the origin of Phoenicia, the ancient land on the eastern Mediterranean Sea coast, present day Lebanon. This littoral area was the source of sea snails from which a very valuable purple dye was extracted. Clothing dyed purple was thus a symbol of wealth and prestige, the term “royal purple” a vestige of its importance. Before the advent of chemical dyes in the early 20th century, color could only be naturally sourced like blue from indigo.
Potpourri: Wineberry would not make a very good wine and it isn’t really a berry. The first wines were naturally fermented thousands of years ago absent any knowledge of the pivotal role of yeast. The sugars in fruit were the food source for natural local yeasts that gave off alcohol as a byproduct of their metabolism. Grapes are the only common and prolific fruits that have enough natural sugar to produce the “weinabasi” libation discovered by fortuitous accident. Wineberries, like all of the other fruits from which wines might be made, must be supplemented with extra sugar (called chaptalizing) to feed the yeast fungus. Wineberry wine, albeit with a tart berry-like taste, would be a far cry from the rich flavor that the best French terroir can impart. A berry is a fruit with seeds imbedded in the pulpy flesh, like grapes, watermelons, and tomatoes. Wineberry, like all brambles that comprise the genus Rubus, notably blackberry and raspberry, is an aggregate fruit with a multitude of tiny, clumped “berries”. One could presumably refer to one wineberry fruit as wineberries. Regardless of its unlikely name, wineberry has spread far and wide, becoming a nuisance to the point of becoming an invasive species in the Appalachian Mountain and coastal regions of the Mid-Atlantic states including Maryland and Virginia. [2]
Wineberries are native to central Asia extending eastward to the Japanese archipelago. They were intentionally introduced into North America by horticulturalists in the 1890’s to hybridize with native Rubus plants. The goal was to potentially improve on nature’s accomplishment by hybridizing native plants with introduced species to produce new cultivars with a greater yield of bigger berries and/or resistance to plant diseases and pests.[3] The compelling rationale for new edible crops at this point in time was that world population had surpassed one billion eliciting global food shortage concerns first raised by Thomas Malthus one hundred years earlier. The eponymous Malthusian principle that population rose geometrically (1,2,4,8 …) while agriculture rose only arithmetically (1,2,3,4 …) leading to inevitable famine was impetus for improvements in agricultural products and methods. The first Agricultural Experimental Station in the United States was inaugurated in New York in 1880 with the express purpose of addressing this challenge. Its director E. Lewis Sturtevant established the precept of conducting experimental agriculture to develop new plant foods. By 1887, with 1,113 cultivated plants and another 4,447 plants with edible parts, research focus shifted to developing fruit varieties. The bramble fruits of the genus Rubus, with about 60 known species and a well-established penchant for hybridization, were considered good candidates for experimentation. Wineberries from Asia became part of the mix.[4] As it turned out, the first green revolution of manufactured fertilizer using the Haber-Bosch process (see Nitrogen Article) and the second green revolution internationalizing Norman Borlaug’s high yield wheat put off the impending Malthusian famine, at least so far. There is every reason for Rubus breeding to continue. [5]
Bramble plants of the genus Rubus are so successful at dominating disturbed habitats that bramble has become a euphemism for any dense tangle of prickliness. Wineberry is only a problem because it is better at “brambling” than many other species, even though the stalks are covered with wine-colored hairs and have no prickles. It spreads both vegetatively with underground roots and with seeds spread in the feces of frugivores, animals that eat fruit. The wineberry plant consists of a rigid stem called a cane that extends upward, unbranching at first, reaching lengths of up to 9 feet. Vegetative spreading is enhanced by tip-rooting which occurs when the longer canes (> 3 feet) arch over and reach the ground, where adventitious roots form to establish an extension. In dense clusters, tip-rooting predominates. It takes two years to make a wineberry, as the first year primocanes apply all growth to cane extension and leaf formation for photosynthesis. The second year floricanes become woody and produce flowers that become fruits if fertilized. Wineberry flowers are hermaphroditic and are therefore less dependent on pollinators since there is no need to transport male pollen from the stamen of one flower to the female pistils of another. [6] Each wineberry fruit is protected by husks densely covered with the signature wine-colored hairs that are remnants of the sepals that comprise the calyx at the base of the flower. [7]
Wineberries are called aggregate fruits rather than berries because they consist of 30 to 60 individual fruits called drupelets that adhere to each other or aggregate as they mature. They are individually formed as the flower has multiple simple pistils that develop separately each with a single seed. The term drupelet (small drupe) is appropriate since a drupe is a type of fruit with a single seed which is normally hardened like the pit of a peach or cherry whereas a berry has multiple seeds in a single fruit. In the vernacular, the term fruit is generally but not consistently applied to any food that is either juicy or pulpy. In botany, fruit is defined as the flower’s female ovary and its seeds after fertilization. The three major types of fruits are simple fruits from one ovary, multiple fruits from the multiple ovaries of an inflorescence, and the intermediate aggregates with multiple drupelets. Legumes like beans, grains like wheat, and nuts like pecans are all dry simple fruits, even though they are vegetables, bread, and nuts respectively at the supermarket. Berries, drupes and pomes are pulpy and/or juicy simple fruits. In botanical taxonomy, the angiosperms, one of two major clades of the kingdom Plantae, are distinguished in having flowers for sexual reproduction. The angiosperm nomenclature states explicitly that they produce seeds (sperm) that are contained in a fruit or case (angio). The alternative gymnosperms have “naked seeds” in cones. [8]
Wineberry is just one of many invasive species that have come to dominate large swaths of the forest understory in the twenty first century. Like kudzu planted for soil remediation of the Dust Bowl and plantain imported as a vital European medicinal, wineberry was introduced with good intention―the improvement of native berry stocks through hybridization. But, as has become increasingly obvious, the complexities of local ecology can result in mountains from molehills as “Frankenplants” take advantage of their reproductive strengths over the competition. There are a number of reasons for the success of wineberry in its unwitting but instinctual quest to become the one and only species wherever it can. It is an aggressive pioneer plant in any disturbed area. One study in Japan found that wineberry covered almost two percent of an extensive ski area after clearcutting, showing high phenotypic plasticity in its adaptations. Its tolerance to shade from tree growth due to old field succession of open areas promotes dense wineberry thickets that are the hallmark of its aggression. [9] On the other hand, all Rubus brambles are apt to dominate disturbed areas like roadside cuts, where one typically finds both raspberries and blackberries in addition to wineberries. There is some irony in that recent DNA analysis of the genus indicates that the first Rubus brambles evolved in North America and subsequently invaded Eurasia without any human intervention. They are brambles, after all. [10]
On the positive side, wineberries are tasty and nutritious, providing a snack for the passing hiker and food for the birds and the bees. A popular field guide to edible plants includes wineberries with raspberries and blackberries as uniformly edible, notably “good with cream and sugar, in pancakes, on cereal, and in jams, jellies, or pies.” [11] The consumption of Rubus fruits by humans precedes the historical record. Given that Homo erectus evolved from the fruit eating great apes, the impetus would be a matter of wired instinct. It is hypothesized that the reason that primates are the only mammals with red color vision is evolutionary pressure to find usually reddish fruit for sustenance and survival in the jungle forest. Historical documentation of the consumption of aggregate fruits was established by Pliny the Elder in 45 CE. He noted in describing raspberries that the people of Asia Minor gathered what he called “Ida fruits” (from Turkey’s Mount Ida). The subgenus of raspberries which includes wineberries is appropriately named Idaeobatus. It is probable that the Romans began to cultivate some form of raspberry as early as 400 CE. [12] Rubus aggregates were also important medicines in addition to the more obvious nutritional attributes. They contain secondary metabolites such as anthocyanins and phenolics which are strong antioxidants, contributing to general good health. Native Americans used them for a variety of ailments ranging from diarrhea to headache, although there is no indication that the effects were anything beyond placebo. [13]
All things considered, it is hard to get worked up over wineberries as pernicious pests. Granted they tend to spread out and take over but then again, so do all of the other brambles. In most cases, the area in question falls into the category of a “disturbed” habitat. While this could be due to storm damage, it is almost universally due to human activities. Road cuts through the forest may be necessary for any number of reasons, but they are initially unsightly tracts of rutted mud unsuited for hiking. Once nature takes over, the edges, now in direct sunlight, become festooned with whatever happens to get there first and grows fast. And what could be more appropriate than a bunch of canes covered with wine colored fuzz bearing sweet fruits?
References:
1. https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/taxon/taxonomydetail?id=32416
2. https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/home/plantProfile?symbol=RUPH
3. “Wineberries” Plant Conservation Alliances, Alien Plant Working Group. 20 May 2005.
4. Hedrick, U. “Multiplicity of Crops as a Means of Increasing the Future Food Supply” Science, Volume 40 Number 1035, 30 October 1914, pp 611-620.
5. Foster, T. et al “Genetic and genomic resources for Rubus breeding: a roadmap for the future” Horticulture Research, Volume 116, 15 October 2019 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41438-019-0199-2
6. Innes, R. Rubus phoenicolasius. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory (Producer) 2009. https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/shrub/rubpho/all.html
7. Swearingen, J., K. Reshetiloff, B. Slattery, and S. Zwicker “Plant Invaders of Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas”. Invasive Plants of the Eastern United States. 2002 https://www.invasive.org/eastern/midatlantic/ruph.html
8. Wilson, C. and Loomis, W. Botany, 4th Edition, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1967, pp 285-304.
9. Innes op cit.
10. Carter, K. et al. “Target Capture Sequencing Unravels Rubus Evolution”. Frontiers in Plant Science. 20 December 2019 Volume 10 page 1615.
11. Elias, T. and Dykeman, P. Edible Wild Plants, A North American Field Guide, Sterling Publishing Company, New York, 1990, pp 178-185.
12. Bushway, L et al Raspberry and Blackberry Production Guide for the Northeast, Midwest, and Eastern Canada, Natural Resource, Agriculture, and Engineering Service (NRAES) Cooperation Extension, Ithaca , NY. May, 2008. https://www.canr.msu.edu/foodsystems/uploads/files/Raspberry-and-Blackberry-Production-Guide.pdf
13. Native American Ethnobotany http://naeb.brit.org/uses/search/?string=rubus%20&page=1
Hiker's Notebook 