sunberry smoothie?
Yesterday I discovered an abundance of orange, low-growing Rubus berries in the groundcover at Lewis and Clark College. I have been calling these delectables “cloudberries” although upon further research (so many passerby were asking questions, I knew I had to come home and get my facts straight!) I found that cloudberry more generally refers to Rubus chamaemorus, a native of the arctic, whereas this plant, also known by landscapers as emerald carpet, is Rubus calycinodes, native to Taiwan. These delicious raspberry-like berries were perfect for adding to a peach smoothie. So what is the common name of the orange berry of the emerald carpet? The internet suggests creeping raspberry, oriental raspberry, ornamental raspberry, all of which seem rather bland to me. I vote we come up with a more distinctive name for this “double-rainbow” awesome berry: orange raspberry? carpetberry? sunberry? What do YOU think?
lush Rubus calycinoides on Lewis and Clark campus
There is also some of these delicious berries growing in the parking lot of the Fred Meyers in NE Portland off Lombard.
Ive heard some orange berries refereed to as Salmonberries, but I think they might be different that this creeping ground cover berry. Orangeberry sounds delicious to me.
No, salmon berries grow on a tall (4′-6′), woody stem and are bigger. This rubus species is planted as a ground cover here at North Seattle Community College. The groundskeeper here says that they have a mild, indistinct flavor. Guess I’ll have to find out for myself., I plan on harvesting some of these berries and using them to start a ground cover under the Doug firs on my property, should be ideal for no a maintenance, nice looking yard with fruit for critters, to boot.
I found an orange berry on the trail between the capitol building and capitol lake in olympia a few years ago. They’re obviously a rubus, so i just started munching, but suspicious passersby motivated me to look em up. They were cloudberries, they’re in the Pojar-Mckinnon book, and i think it was there that i read they are native to the boreal forests around the world, and an important food for many peoples. They were definitely worth picking, but the photo you have puts em to shame. Thats alot of berries!
I found some of these at WSU Vancouver and thought they were a cloudberry-raspberry hybrid.. they’re called Rubus calycinoides and come from Thailand. Picked a ton of em and am going to make pie or something! I thought at first they were cloudberries, too, but cloudberries don’t have thorns all over them.