Here a berry, there a berry
If you were hiking through the Andes foraging for edible fruits, you may encounter a climbing shrub covered in some familiar looking berries. If you’re from North America, you may want to call these blackberries, and you would be correct.
Blackberry is actually a common name for the genus Rubus of the Roseaceae family. There are over 375 species of blackberry distributed across Europe, North and South America, northwestern Africa, and western and central Asia.
Blackberries grow wild in many countries and are both ecologically and culturally important. Many species of caterpillar and and several species of grazing mammal rely on the plant’s leaves for sustenance. The red fox and eurasian badger consume the berries and act as agents of seed dispersal as well.
These berries have also been consumed by humans for thousands of years. Picking and eating them is a popular pastime, unfortunately human fondness of the plant and its delicious fruits have led to its development into an invasive species in regions of the world that do not have their own native blackberry species.
Source
Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 11 Jan. 2017. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackberry?oldformat=true>.
