I have a lot of these plants growing on my property in Northwest Montana. The leaves are large, and they have medium white flowers. They look like they may be forming berries.
Any idea what they are?
I don’t know much about Montana’s flora, but they look like some kind of blackberry (or possibly raspberry) to me.
We have wild blackberries on the property and they have leaves 1/2 to 1/4 the size of these plants. Hence my question. I guess we’ll see what they turn into.
Thimbleberry, which is a species of Rubus.
Wait … they grow cell phones in Montana?
The leaf shape … 5 sepals … Filbert is on to something … the genus is Rubus, you’ll need a local Flora with a key to find the exact species. Do the stems have thorns?
That cite is unclear about range … here’s the map from the USDA clearly showing Montana.
That’s it! Thimbleberry. I will mix the berries in with the wild blackberries and see what happens when I make jam out of them. They don’t appear to be poisonous, which is what I was concerned about. Thanks for fighting my ignorance.
The thimbleberries will turn red and you can eat them. Kind of watery and don’t have much taste. They are soft and mushy and don’t transport well or much at all. If you pick a bowl, by the time you get them back to your house you will have a bowl of red mushy berry soup.
You can pick and eat some while out walking around but they lack most of the favorable traits we think of as being food berries.
Yeah, thimbleberries are edible but they’re not that great.
dolphinboy: Try cooking them. I like blackberries but consider them insipid until stewed with water, a bit of sugar and a few scratchings of nutmeg. A squeeze of lemon juice may help to brighten up the flavor of your berries. I’m still waiting to hear from Mr. Magoo, I gave him the same hint for dealing with his razzleberries. 