Saturday, March 30th, 2019
In the woods behind the house, there is a small patch of ground where loganberries grow among the brambles. These must have originally been raspberry plants that crossed with the abundant and well established brambles to form hybrids. They survive from year to year, but only just. And they have never spread further afield or colonised other parts of the woods. As a child I do remember seeing wild raspberries in the woods in the 1960s. Out walking with the dogs yesterday, we came across these tall canes growing along the edge of the path. Their pale leaves and vertical stems mark them out as different from the horizontally rambling brambles. They will bear fruit in late summer, but the yield is never abundant and the few bright red berries will be hard to pick as the whole area becomes smothered in bracken and brambles. Only the branches right at the edge of path will become accessible. I have never seen raspberries or loganberries growing elsewhere in the wild along local footpaths. We are lucky to have these unusual plants in our ancient woodlands.