Berries at the Clearing

While at The Clearing I took many photos of the local plants.  Often they were flowering, but just as many were covered in berries.  Berries in shades of yellow, orange, red and blue filled the woods and gardens around us.  I was able to identify several of them, but one remains a mystery.

Red Elderberry, Sambucus racemes, bushes surrounded the cabins.  Tree like shrub have compound leaves with 5 to 7 lance-shaped leaflets with irregularly serrated edges.  The panicles of flowers at the ends of the branches had long since been replaced by bright red-purple fruits.  This is not the edible Elderberry, that is the Black Elderberry, Sambucus canadensis.  It is however eaten by birds, and we watched Bluebirds eagerly feeding on the berries. 

The kitchen garden had a Red Currant, Ribes rubrum.   The small bushes have palmate 5 lobed leaves that spiral up the branch.  Pendulous racemes of yellow to red translucent tart edible berries. 

Thickets of thornless Thimbleberry, Rubus parviflorus, covered clearings in the forest floor.  Their 8 inch palmate leaves are soft and fuzzy.  Composite bright red 2 inch tart fruit stand above the bush.  Like other raspberries and blackberrires, the fruit is not a true berry, but numerous drupelets around a central core.

The unknown groups of blue colored berries sat above short plants that had leaves that reminded me of anemone plants, but they have seeds not fruits.  The mystery remains.