A seasonal poll

[lnr]

[Poll #1766673]

If you answer "Something else" do feel free to expand in the comments.

Comments

[khrister.livejournal.com]

We call them Björnbär (Bear berries) and Björnbärssnår (Bear berry thickets).

[lnr]

Excellent :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

That's fab - is that Swedish? (I'm guessing :)

[lnr]

Hang on a minute, you just voted that you call the plants "brambles" not "bramble bushes" - and the only reason I even thought to include the latter was because you just used it in your recent post that inspired this poll!

[venta.livejournal.com]

I was translating for southerners :)

In general, I'd call them brambles. However, when using the word bramble twice in one sentence I thought it better to clarify.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I've ticked a second box now I've noticed (thanks to comments below) that they aren't radio buttons :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I've ticked a second box now I've noticed (thanks to comments below) that they aren't radio buttons :)

[khrister.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's Swedish.

[vatine]

Same here.

[caramel-betty.livejournal.com]

I've ticked "bramble" because it seemed the right thing to do, but I can't ever really remember using it in the singular. We'd usually talk about "brambles" plural.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, this.

I ticked bramble _and_ blackberry bush, but I'd use bramble much more commonly than blackberry bush. Although it's slightly context dependant - e.g. 'I've just scratched my leg on that bl**dy bramble' cf 'We've just moved into the area, are there any good blackberry bushes near here?'

[lnr]

I ticked both too (which is why I used check boxes :), and use them in a similar way to you.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Me too, I think.

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

I hadn't encountered "blackberry bush" before - to me it sounds odd in the same way as "acorn tree" would.

[lnr]

Would "apple tree" sound odd though? Or "Gooseberry bush"?

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

Indeed not; I'm saying that although in Sally's dialect the plant in question follows the same pattern as apple and gooseberry do (for everyone), in mine it follows the same pattern as the oak tree.

[lnr]

*nods* fair enough.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Yes, I use the two terms in very much the way you describe, and also in the way mair_aw describes further down. Possibly because not all brambles yield good or plentiful blackberry crops, and you can't know which are which except in blackberry season? So they are 'blackberry bushes' only in the context of providing blackberries, but they can always be 'brambles' year round and wherever you meet them!

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

I plan to go and pick some at lunchtime ;)

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

The fruit itself is a blackberry, and the general type of bush it grows on is a bramble, so this specific type of bush is therefore a blackberry bramble.

(c.f. raspberries growing on raspberry brambles.)

On the other hand, I'm quite likely to call it anything from a combination of 'blackberry bramble bush' on down.

[fanf]

Raspberries grow on canes :-)

[lnr]

I'm with fanf on this one.

[antinomy.livejournal.com]

+1

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

How weird! So why do you call a raspberry bramble a 'cane'? For me, canes are long straight stems like reeds, nothing like the tangles that you get with brambles.

[venta.livejournal.com]

The raspberry canes that grew in the garden when I was little were fairly straight, and nothing at all like brambles!

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Aah, interesting. So it's probably down to the variety then.

I wonder if there are any blackberry bushes that are also straight? A full size bramble patch is not what I'd expect a commercial grower to like for any of the black/rasp/logan/${foo}berry family, and it wouldn't surprise me if plant breeders had prioritised accessibility quite highly.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Hmm, googling on 'blackberry cane' shows that (at least many) commercial growers do use canes rather than brambles for blackberry fruit.

So lnr: we have another possible name for the bushes.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, there's interesting.

Our brambles were grown on an allotment which was very prone to vandalism, and the council strictly forbade use of barbed wire on fences. A fenceful of extremely un-caney brambles, however, was quite valid and probably an even more effective deterrent. With the side-effect of fruit every autumn.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming you're using 'brambles' there to refer to blackberry ones.

But yes, it does look like the distinction between canes and brambles is not so much the fruit that is grown on it so much as the form of the bush - long straight(ish) stems for 'canes', and more twining tangled stems for 'brambles'. I'd expect that in the wild the twining stem is going to predominate, but in commercial setups I'd expect the cane style to be more used. So the apparent difference between raspberries and blackberries bushes is likely to be that the former is usually considered in its commercial form (I've never encountered a wild raspberry bush in the UK) whereas the latter is very frequently encountered in the wild form, even sometimes when cultivated, and it is the wild form that most people will immediately think of.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming you're using 'brambles' there to refer to blackberry ones.

Yes, sorry... stupid in context. I've never, ever heard anyone refer to a "raspberry bramble" so used the word to mean blackberry bush without thinking.

Raspberry bush, yes, for wild-ish ones, but never raspberry bramble.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Not stupid, you were following your previously stated terminology rather than the wider one I was, but I thought I ought to check since between us it was theoretically ambiguous.

[emperor]

I'm aware of all these usages. In my mind "bramble" implies more wild, and "blackberry" more cultivated.

[1ngi.livejournal.com]

I was fascinated to learn that they are called black raspberries in the US.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

And since the loganberry is an accidental cross of a red raspberry and a 'black raspberry', it also ought to be named a raspberry.

And we won't mention the dewberry or cloudberry relatives. (I'll just refer people to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubus regarding the whole mess.)

[htfb.livejournal.com]

Blackberry jam is called bramble jelly, thobut.

[lnr]

Blackberry jelly could be called bramble jelly. If it's got bits in (and my mum's blackberry jam always did) that would be weirdly american.

[pakennedy.livejournal.com]

Blackberry jam is whole fruit. Bramble jelly is strained to has no pips.

[mair_in_grenderich]

I call 'em (the bushes) blackberries when they're ripe and I'm picking them, and brambles when they're chewing up my clothes while I'm taking a stroll, or if I'm weeding them/chopping them down...

[lnr]

:)

[sparrowsion]

+1

[uisgebeatha.livejournal.com]

Brambles for the fruit, and brambles for the plant. Probably a Scottish thing :P

[lnr]

I've always thought calling the fruit brambles was a Scottish dialect thing, but it looks like it reaches parts of North East England too, though not as far south as Yorkshire. I've not really got enough data here to be worth plotting a map. Though reading where you've all said you're from is brilliant :)

[olithered.livejournal.com]

blackberry jam, bramble jelly.

[pakennedy.livejournal.com]

It's a Rubus Fruticosus. I'm studying Ecology and you ned to be accurate sometimes