indiana native plant of the month - july

With the internet being packed with useless information, we want to kick off each month with a blog post to shed some light on some of Indiana’s native plants with fun personalities.

purple-flowering raspberry (rubis odoratus)

Purple Flowering Raspberry is an ornamental shrub producing beautiful purple blooms in early summer, helping our pollinators, and sizeable fruit for for birds and other woodland critters. This plant, deemed threatened in Indiana, loves to sprawl out in moist, partially shaded woodland perimeters.

indentifying purple-flowering raspberry

Purple Flowering Raspberry has a few key identifying traits, such as:

• Velvety light green, maple-like leaves

• Grows in a thicket formation

• Beautiful purple flowers

• Hairy stems

Fun fact: restless roots

This shrub is rhizomatous. It will send underground stems to sprout new plants, creating large thickets.