"Cloudberry "

Description

Rubus chamaemorus is a species of flowering plant in the rose family Rosaceae, native to cool temperate regions, alpine and arctic tundra and boreal forest.This herbaceous perennial produces amber-colored edible fruit similar to the blackberry. English common names include cloudberry, nordic berry, bakeapple (in Newfoundland and Labrador), knotberry and knoutberry (in England), aqpik or low-bush salmonberry (in Alaska – not to be confused with salmonberry, Rubus spectabilis), and averin or evron (in Scotland). Unlike most Rubus species, the cloudberry is dioecious, and fruit production by a female plant requires pollination from a male plant. The cloudberry grows to 10–25 cm (4–10 in) high. The leaves alternate between having 5 and 7 soft, handlike lobes on straight, branchless stalks. After pollination, the white (sometimes reddish-tipped) flowers form raspberry-sized aggregate fruits which are more plentiful in wooded rather than sun-exposed habitats. Consisting of between 5 and 25 drupelets, each fruit is initially pale red, ripening into an amber color in early autumn. Cloudberries are a circumpolar boreal plant, occurring naturally throughout the Northern Hemisphere from 78°N, south to about 55°N, and are scattered south to 44°N mainly in mountainous areas and moorlands. In Europe, they grow in the Nordic countries but are rare in the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania).They occur across northern Russia east towards the Pacific Ocean as far south as Japan.Due to peatland drainage and peat exploitation, they are considered endangered and are under legal protection in Germany's Weser and Elbe valleys, and at isolated sites in the English Pennines and Scottish Highlands. A single, fragile site exists in the Sperrin Mountains of Northern Ireland.