(nagoonberry)
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Photo of Rubus arcticus by Adolph Murie
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Nagoonberry is a small herb in the rose family (Rosaceae) with
trifoliate leaves and pink flowers that develop into red, flavorful berries. This species occurs in shrub thickets, floodplains and poplar forests in damp, lush sites across the park. Plants grow 5-15 cm tall from a slender
rhizome. The leaves are divided into three segments (occasionally just
lobed), alternately arranged, with
toothed margins. Leaves are light green on both sides, more or less hairy on both sides, usually particularly hairy on the veins of the lower surface. Plants produce 1-3 flowers above the leaves. Flowers are five-petalled and deep to light pink, the petals round
ovate, with narrow green
sepals. The bisexual flowers have numerous
stamens with pink
filaments and cream
stamens, initially curved in towards the
styles.
Sepals are hairy. Fruits are flavorful, raspberry-like, and red, (technically an aggregate drupelet), about 1 cm across. Nagoonberry can be distinguished from the other small
Rubus species in the park, cloudberry (
Rubus chamaemorus), by the leaf shape and flower color: cloudberry has five-parted leaves and white flowers, while nagoonberry has
trifoliate leaves and pink flowers.
This species is perennial. It flowers in mid-summer and leaves turn dark red in fall.
Nagoonberry flowers are nectar producing and insect pollinated. A study on wild Finnish plants demonstrated that nagoonberry is self-incompatible, with very low seed set for self-pollinated plants (
Tammisola and Ryynanen 1970). Insect visitors in Finland and Estonia included bumblebees, honeybees and flies (
Ryynanen 1973,
Vool et al. 2003). The fruit is a bright red aggregate of 15-30 juicy
drupes, each with a seed inside. Plants do not flower every year, and fruit set is not especially high.
Berries are tasty and commonly picked and eaten, or collected for jams and jellies if they can be found in large enough quantities.
Disclaimer for Known Uses.
Nagoonberry is an incompletely circumpolar species with a boreal-montane distribution. In North America, this species occurs across Canada and extends south into the continental U.S. in the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Lakes states and in New England. In Alaska, this species occurs from the northern flanks of the Brooks Range southward, common throughout central Alaska, southcentral and the west coast, though it is rarely reported from the Aleutians or Southeast. Nagoonberry is widespread in Denali, from the lowlands to the alpine, and occurs on both sides of the Alaska Range.
Details are shown in the Plots & Charts found at right, depicting recent Denali data.
Nagoonberry is an abundant species that prefers low and moderate southern slopes, in the alpine. Wide elevational range, from 80 to 1402 meters, but this species is most common in the alpine. It is most likely to be found at 900-1100 meters, though its presence declines dramatically on sites above 1100 meters.
Details are shown in the Plots & Charts found at right. For more on how to interpret these figures, visit Understanding Data Presented.
Wet to moist sites.
