Tropical Raspberry

Raspberry?, Rubus?

As many would imagine, the tropical rainforest is host to a variety of fruits and other edible plants, more so than a temperate region. One of the seemingly common fruits we kept passing in this section of the Atlantic Rainforest was what could be described as a raspberry. A proper botanist could likely identify whether or not it actually belongs in the Rubus genus or possibly Vaccinium family, either by identifying features or molecular study. What I find interesting is that this well-known temperate fruit might have a tropical cousin, which certainly doesn't seem to be common. Either way, the locals knew it as a sweet treat off the trails.

One word of advice, as given at a lecture in college: never gorge yourself on what you think is a safe plant. I'm unsure if it was ever picked up in the news, but a team of scientists exploring a region of South America plateaus were stranded due to weather preventing helicopter pick-up. Thinking themselves lucky, they found a bush of blueberries which is one of the safer genuses in botany. Some members gorged, other had one or two then waited. Unlucky to the gorging members, they happened upon a previously unknown toxic genus member. Thankfully, no one died, but they did need treatment. Those who waited, didn't have to wait too long before seeing that this was not an edible fruit.

The point being, the locals knew this raspberry-like fruit as safe, but even then we'd have been careful for you never know what immunity they developed that we foreigners hadn't.