Common names: Black Raspberry, Blackcaps

Binomial name: Rubus occidentalis

Garden uses: fruit

Foliage: Plants have compound leaves with three or five leaflets.
The leaflets have toothed margins and silvery-whitish undersides,
and are often prickly (though much less so than the stems are).

Flowers: Five-parted with white petals, borne in clusters at the
ends of second-year canes.

Wisconsin native range: found throughout Wisconsin in sunny to
partially-shaded areas. 

A common species throughout Wisconsin, the black raspberry produces
an abundance of fruit towards the end of June and in early July.
With its arching canes, it commonly grows in dense thickets along
fencelines, in ditches along rural roads, and on other disturbed
sites. The fruits are smaller than garden-variety raspberries, with
larger seeds, and their flavor is rather unlike that of cultivated
red raspberries (in my opinion, much tastier). Of course, humans ar
the only creatures that like raspberries - birds love the fruit and
disperse the seeds to new areas.

Black raspberries grow very similarly to garden raspberries, and
can be propagated in much the same way.  First year canes (the ones
with silvery-green stems) can be rooted by cuttings or by layering.
Of course, they can also be grown from seeds, but it seems that it
would be much easier and faster to use asexual propagation
techniques with such a prolifically-growing plant.