Rubus Leucodermis

Rubus leucodermis (blackcap raspberry, black raspberry, whitebark raspberry, or blue raspberry) is a species of Rubus native to western North America, from British Columbia, Canada south to California, New Mexico and Mexico. It is closely related to the eastern black raspberry Rubus occidentalis.

It is a deciduous shrub growing to 0.5–2 m tall, with prickly shoots. While the crown is perennial, the canes are biennial, growing vegetatively one year, flowering and fruiting the second, and then dying. As with other dark raspberries, the tips of the first-year canes (primocanes) often grow downward to the soil in the fall, and take root and form tip layers which become new plants. The leaves are pinnate, with five leaflets on leaves' strong-growing stems in their first year, and three leaflets on leaves on flowering branchlets with white and infrequently light purple flowers. The fruit is 1–1.2 cm diameter, red to reddish-purple at first, turning dark purple to nearly black when ripe. The fruit has high contents of anthocyanins and ellagic acid.

It is a variable species, and forms natural hybrids with other species in subgenus Idaeobatus. Three varieties are recognized:

• Rubus leucodermis var. leucodermis
• Rubus leucodermis var. bernardinus Jepson
• Rubus leucodermis var. trinitatis Berger