European Dewberry (Rubus caesius)
European dewberry (Rubus caesius) is a small shrub belonging to the large and diverse genus Rubus, which includes many important cultivated and wild berries, such as raspberry, blackberry, cloudberry, arctic raspberry, and stone bramble.
Danish: korbær – Finnish: sinivatukka – Icelandic: daggarber – Norwegian: blåbringebær – Swedish: blåhallon
Text by Heli Fitzgerald, top photo by Saxifraga/Jan van der Straaten.
The small shrub grows with its upright often prickly shoots in waterside thickets, broadleaf forests, and forest margins. It flowers in Nordic region from May or June onwards and produces edible berries similar to blackberry. The berries have a waxy blue coloring, giving its scientific name ‘caesius’, which means bluish grey in Latin.
Prioritized in the Nordic Region
European dewberry’s global native range is from Europe all the way to Western Himalaya, Northwest Africa, and an area in Southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. It grows as an indigenous species in all Nordic countries except Iceland. Its distribution is Denmark and southern parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Dewberry is classified as near threatened in Norway.European dewberry can hybridize with raspberry and stone bramble in the wild. Wild Dewberries are listed as priority crop wild relatives in the Nordic region. Their closest species in cultivation are Dewberry and Raspberry.
In folk medicine Dewberry has been used to treat diarrhea and inflammation. The main use nowadays is for food, the berries are eaten fresh and used to prepare jams. In Sweden, Dewberry jam has become popular throughout the country after being a locally used berry before the twentieth century. It can be served with Gotland specialty, oven-baked saffron pancakes.
References:
https://journalofethnicfoods.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42779-021-00114-3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewberry
https://luontoportti.com/en/t/1373/dewberry
