Old, flowering canes die off after flowering and fruiting. New canes spring from the ground to form open, arching, upright shrubs. Stems that touch ground will root at the tips, making new plants. This slow leap frogging, along with bird sown seed, increases the plants territory, which can, in favorable conditions, form prickly thickets. Stems are armed with sparse but stout prickles, broad at the base and either straight or hooked.
Leaves are white tomentose on the underside.
The moderately tart, distinctively flavored berries are used in specialty foods like jams and ice cream and also as coloring agents. They have small seeds and, like red raspberries, a hollow core when picked. This is a common bramble of thickets, roadsides and open woodland from Quebec, Canada to Georgia and west to North Dakota, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas. Whatever it's called, this one, despite its sweet fruit, relished by people and wildlife, is a plant I do not love. There are more than one hundred twenty-two varieties of blackberry.