
Summer Fruit
Summer fruit that you may be lucky enough to see in the countryside at this time of the year in the UK

The Cherry Plum is also known as the Myrobalan Plum. It is native to a region from the Balkans to central Asia and has been cultivated in Britain from the 16th century. The word ‘Myrobalan’ was originally used for the sharp-tasting fruit of an Asian tree before it was applied to this plum.The plum is yellow or red and can be eaten raw or used in cooking. It is a small tree and is frequently planted in urban areas because it is one of the first trees to come into flower in the spring. It is also planted widely in hedgerows. Photograph taken in late July.

The Blackthorn is a small thorny tree or shrub, usually found in farm hedgerows, but often planted in urban areas. The fruit is called a ‘sloe’ and can be used to make wines, jam and the liqueur, sloe gin. The Black and Brown Hairstreak butterflies lay their eggs on Blackthorn thorns in summer.

The Elder is a shrub or small tree which grows in hedgerows and woods throughout Britain. It is also native to Europe, North Africa and south west Asia. The fruit is used to make wine and has many medicinal uses, but the seeds and other plant parts are toxic.

This is the fruit of the Bramble, the Blackberry. Rubus is a genus of 250 plants which includes two native wildflowers, the upright Raspberry rubus idaeus and the scrambling Bramble Rubus fruticosus. Botanically the Blackberry is an aggregate fruit, composed of small drupelets attached to a central elongated receptacle. The hypanthium is flat and the receptacle is fleshy and comes away when the fruit is picked. Raspberry fruit is red when ripe and the receptacle does not come away when the fruit is picked.