Notebook 8: Brambles Mid October

Many of the roadsides in McKinleyville, including those around Central Avenue and Airport Road, are home to large blackberry brambles. I don't know the exact origin of these brambles as both wild growing and cultivated blackberries are a common sight in the region, but it seems plausible that they were planted to serve as hedges between people's yards and the open street. Some of these brambles have grown to be quite enormous and spill out practically into the street where hungry or merely opportunistic passersby can readily nab a decent quantity of sweet, tangy berries without anyone else seeming to notice or care. 

Presumably some of the homeowners would mind, but many of these patches seem to produce more berries than anyone cares to deal with. At this point in the season, the signs of this neglect are palpable. There are still a few pleasantly ripe late-bloomers lurking among the vines, but they are badly outnumbered by vast quantities of desiccated, inedible little gray-black masses that dangle forlornly where ripe berries once hung. These sad little rejects aren't something you want to put in your mouth (though I have, inadvertently, more than a few times during my quest for the good stuff) and lately have begun to reek like mold and cheap wine from several feet away. I have no doubt something will come along to eat them before too long, but for the moment, even the birds seem to be leaving them alone.

 

At any rate, that's the kind of blackberry plant that grows in front of people's houses. Across the street, in the little world that exists between the asphalt and the airport fence, there grows a very different sort of plant. These vines are rugged and low to the ground. They crisscross the roadside (as well as much of the airport field itself) like red veins. Their leaves are shaped about the same as their upright cousins, but only the new young leaves have any brightness to them. Those that have spent rough months hiding in the dirt and dew to escape the mowers' blades have a battle tested quality to them. They are ragged and rusty at the edges and cloudy and glaucous in center. They have lived rough lives and bear no berries. 

Cursory internet research tells me there are two kinds of blackberry varieties growing wild in Humboldt county: the lovely little native blackberries and the bigger invasive pest the Himalayan blackberry. I'm not a botanist though and field identification is hard. One side of the road has berries that might be considered on the large side. The other has no berries at all. Neither set of plants is growing in what could be considered a “natural state” and though I imagine they are members of the same species growing under very different circumstances, I cannot be certain even of that. For the moment, the question of whether the blackberry vines of the airport field are consummate survivors or implacable invaders remains unanswered.