drupes, druplets, and dreams

It is October and we are savouring the fruits of summer. Though the blackberries on Denman Island this year were relatively small and the harvest modest in size, my family still managed to freeze enough for our winter smoothies. For years we have shredded our bodies and torn our clothes to harvest this late summer bounty so we can enjoy summer sweetness over the long winter.

One reason for the success of the blackberry bramble is that it can keep producing as long as it gets bee visits. The more the bee visits the more druplets -- juice filled berry bumps -- on the berry. Our relatively small berries this year tell us that our blackberry blossoms had fewer bee visits, most likely due to the very wet -- and cool -- Spring and Summer months.

I love the word, druplets. It reminds me of the poetic term: couplets, as in, rhyming couplets, only for a blackberry poetry "jam" we would compose using juicing druplets. A druplet is the petite version of a drupe -- a stone or seed surrounded by fruity flesh. A peach is a classic drupe. I did't know anything about drupes or druplets until writing this blog entry. How could I have feasted on fruit all these years and and never heard of drupes or druplets?

As the weeks of summer finally came to an end, our blackberry bramble continued putting out blossoms "just in case" it was able to grow through a warm and sunny early Fall. The first photo is one such late blossom that I found just beginning its hopeful cycle amid dozens of neighbouring dead stems that have long since dropped berries to the ground or surrendered its ripe jewels to picking fingers. Unfortunately, with so much rain and cool weather this past September, the bees visits no doubt were too few to allow the blossom to form fruit druplets.

Our valiant blossom -- the blackberries' gamble on warm Fall weather -- grows amongst brown leaves and rotting berries but, nevertheless, dreams of what might be. It does not permit what is to silence its perfumed call to the bees and or diminish its delicious beauty. I am inspired by this blossoms optimism in action. Maybe next year we will have an "Indian summer" and the blossom's gamble will pay off? I hope so.

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Image credits: Photos by Jessica at Oceanwood. 

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