We have wild blackcaps on our property and honestly, you are not missing much. The ones in my yard have little flavor, meanwhile the wild blueberries in Michigan, I find very tasty. I like them better than the cultivated.

There are some black raspberries that occur very sporadically in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon and Washington. I have found them very tasty. Hard to get a ripe one because animals or people have picked over them.

Coming across wild edible berries is always a delight to me.

My property used to have commercial berries on it 100 years ago, so now there are a lot of wild blackberries and black raspberries. I find a big difference between some raspberry patches...some have berries that are small and crumbly, others have large and delicious berries. I don't know if the difference is the variety, the soil, or the surrounding plants. I try to mow down the bad ones and encourage the good ones. Usually I end up with as many berries as I want to pick each year and make lots of jam and freeze the rest.

I agree with Mr ED about "Blackcap" berries.They were fair at best for taste, thorny and were not prolific, expensive and a waste of space and now gone.
I opted fot Logan berries instead for a large tasty berry (with sugar added) and abundant. My mistake was I put them in too close to the Boysenberries and a few years later no one including them know the difference but, neither does my palate'

Dunca, not sure if your experience with blackcaps was restricted to the wild ones, but of all the varieties of berries I grow, my Jewel blackcaps are some of the tastiest and most vigorous. I'd recommend giving them a try if you haven't already.

I have Jewel and hate the taste. However my daughter loves them. It's the only reason I keep the last plant. We've tasted wild ones grown around here, and both agree they taste very similar to Jewel.

To me black raspberries have an undertone of hard boiled egg that ruins the flavor. They're also not as sweet as blackberries.

Funny how taste works. It is a strong, pungent flavor without much sweetness, but my 3 year old loves them also (but he also likes Aronia berries which are too bitter for me). We must be relatively less sensitive to the egg taste than you are. I assumed and thought I recalled reading that Jewel is bigger, sweeter, and juicier compared to the wild varieties. Nourse claimed that Bristol is considered to be better tasting than Jewel, so I planted some of those as well (along with MacBlack and Black Hawk). Now I'm just hoping your mention of the egg flavor doesn't have me tasting it when my 20 black raspberry plants start bearing in a few weeks....

Not sure what information you are looking for Swaine or how much you already know about wild berries. But we don't have black raspberries in the UK, either wild or in our gardens. Wild raspberries are only moderately common here and are pretty labour intensive to gather. However, blackberries are still very widely gathered as are elderberries and, in appropriate areas, whortleberries (Vaccinium myrtillus). Sloes are also frequently picked for making sloe gin. Wild currants are so few and far between as to make picking them hardly worth the effort.

djofnelson,

You're right, tastes can be pretty mysterious. My wife likes pickled artichokes and coffee, both of which are too bitter for me. Yet we grow a sub-acid peach that is nothing but a ball of sugar (no flavor at all) and she loves it.

Let me know how the MacBlack and Black Hawk compare to Jewel.

Think egg flavor, egg flavor, egg flavor....

:-)

I like hard-boiled eggs, and since black-caps don't have a yolk, they have now moved even farther up my list of healthy foods.

Thanks for the taste tip.

for flora uk
the question was a general intrest of wild fruit in the us and canada
i have black raspberries in the uk, imported from the u.s
the following varieties
black hawk
bristol
cumberland
jewel
as well as rubus lucodermis, and rubus occadentalis, these 2 are growing outside and berries are regulary taken by birds so the is a possibility, abiet small of the growing wild from bird sown seeds,

Hi Swain,

I have what I call Yellow-caps which appear to be an unpigmented black raspberry. The great thing about these.. other than the taste.. is birds leave them alone whereas they seem to devour my blackcaps right beside these ones. If you are interested in a seed swap send me an email.

Tyler

Here is a link that might be useful: Yellowcaps

Blackberries grow wild all over Western Oregon. They are huge plants, very invasive, huge thorns, large hard seeds, and divine flavor when they are fully ripe.

It's common for families to go berry picking along the road sides.

Nobody would deliberately introduce them into their garden, both for fear of introducing disease and for fear the vines would swallow their house.

A post script: I am in Central Oregon and am going to try to baby some blackberry plants into surviving. It's much too cold for them where I live.

But there is a large patch of wild blackberries thriving just north of me. Those are some tough, cold-hardy blackberry plants. I'm afraid to go and dig any up, though, for fear of introducing disease into my garden.

hi tyler,
we have spoke earlier in the year about the yellow caps, i think i have your email, think you wanted some purple raspberry seeds from (royalty, brandywine, glen coe) in exchange, the rapsberries in the uk are just starting to flower so hopefully have seed july/august time,

many thanks to everyone who has posted so far, found some pictures on wikipedia of yellow caps, and purple raspberries, ( rubus negletus) growing wild in the u.s