Water Wise Plants

ROO-bus par-VEE-floh-roos

Thimbleberry

Shrub

4 - 8.2 ft. (1.2 - 2.5 m) tall

Moderate: water weekly until the root ball is wet

Half sun to shade

White, Yellow

Rubus parviflorus (Thimbleberry) is a species in the Rosaceae (Rose) family native to western and northern North America, from Alaska east to Ontario and Michigan and south to northern Mexico and widespread in California. It grows from sea level in the north, up to 2,500 meter altitude in the south of the range. It is a dense shrub up to 2.5 meter tall with canes 3-15 millimeter diameter, often growing in large clumps which spread through the plant's underground rhizome. Rubus is the genus of raspberries and blackberries, but unlike most other members of the genus, this has no thorns. The soft, fuzzy, palmate leaves measure 5-20 cm across, with five lobes. The flowers are 2-6 cm in diameter, with five white petals and numerous pale yellow stamens. It produces a tart edible composite fruit 10-15 millimeter diameter, which ripen to a bright red in mid to late summer. Like other raspberries it is not a true berry, but instead an aggregate fruit of numerous drupelets around a central core; the drupelets may be carefully removed separately from the core when picked, leaving a hollow fruit which bears a resemblance to a thimble, perhaps giving the plant its name.