Purple raspberries

Also known as purple-cane hybrids, purple raspberries are domesticated cultivars with a mixture of red and black raspberry genes.

Most purple varieties are similar in flavor to the raspberries; however some purple varieties produce canes, and others share the growth habit of the black raspberries.

The canes are generally more winter hardy than the black parents. They tend to be very spiny and productive with large, intensely flavored berries.

The canes are prickly but not bristly, have an arching habit, and root at the tip. Leaves are morphologically variable and the flowering branches glabrous. Fruits are dark red to purple.

The purple raspberry cultivar ‘Royal’ is now widely grown in northeast China, where it is highly productive, amenable to cane burying for winter an harvested at the early stages of ripeness when it can be sold as ‘red raspberry’.
Purple raspberries