What is it Wednesday: July 1, 2020

Can you identify what's in this photo?

 

 

Each Wednesday morning 

on Camp Lutherlyn's Facebook page

 the Lutherlyn Environmental Education Program posts a photo. 

 

 

Readers have all morning and afternoon 

to make their best guess about what the photo is. 

 

Around 6 pm LEEP provides the answer and a brief explanation.

 

 

Each week's What is it Wednesday post 

will also be posted on the Nature of Lutherlyn blog, 

 after it is posted on Facebook,

sometimes with additional bonus information. 

 

In addition to bringing you current editions of What is it Wednesday 

on the Nature of Lutherlyn blog, 

we will be reposting old editions,

creating a What is it Wednesday archive. 

 

This photo was posted as a What is it Wednesday on. 

 

 

 

And the answer is....

In this picture we see the leaves and flowers of dewberry.
You can also see the stem or vine if you look closely. 

Dewberry grows low to the forest floor, along a trailing vine that has small sharp thorns.
It produces a small aggregate berry that starts off red and turns dark purple as it ripens. The berries are edible and look a lot like black raspberries, but smaller and not as sweet. Dewberries at Lutherlyn ripen late in the summer.

Dewberries are easily mistaken for wild strawberries at first glance, but looking at them side by side it is easier to see they have clear differences. The most notable difference is that dewberries grow on a thorny vine, while strawberries grow on a soft short upright stem. But the leaves and flower petals of dewberries are also generally smaller and pointier than the leaves and flowers of strawberries, with more prominent veins. 

When you first saw this picture, did you think it was wild strawberries or did you know it was dewberries? Like and follow Camp Lutherlyn on Facebook, to see What is it Wednesday posts when they come out and have the opportunity to share your guesses in the comments!