COMMON RASPBERRY — RUBUS IDAEUS L.
A branching thorny shrub 1–2 meters high with a perennial rhizome that develops biennial above-ground stems. In the first year, the stems are herbaceous, green, and covered with thorns. By winter, they become woody, lose their thorns, and in the second year, they flower and bear fruit, after which they wither and dry out. However, new stems grow from the same root every year. The leaves are alternate, compound, odd-pinnate, with 5(7) leaflets; the upper ones are trifoliate. Leaves are green on the top side and gray-felted underneath. Flowers are inconspicuous, greenish-white, and have five petals. The fruit is a red aggregate drupe consisting of 20–30 or more drupelets, easily separating from the conical receptacle supported by a calyx. Blooms in June–July; fruits ripen in July–August.
Wild raspberries are widespread in the forest and forest-steppe zones of the European part of Russia and Siberia, thriving most abundantly in forest burns and clearings. They are often found in open areas on hills, near rivers and ravines, along forest edges, and in forest glades. They grow in sparse spruce and mixed spruce-deciduous forests, less luxuriously in pine forests with a shrub undergrowth. Occasionally found in dry pine woods with moss and lichen cover. They are less common in the mountains of the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Mature wild raspberry fruits without the conical receptacle, colloquially (and incorrectly) called berries — Fructus Rubi idaei — are harvested only in dry weather.
The collected fruits are spread in thin layers (1–2 fruit deep) on screens under the sun for 1 day to wilt, then dried on sieves or screens in layers 2.5–3.5 cm thick in dryers at 30–50°C or in a mild oven, where they dry within a few hours. After drying, blackened fruits are discarded.
Wild raspberries are considered more suitable for medicinal purposes than cultivated varieties; their fruits are smaller but less watery, more fragrant, and more tart than cultivated raspberries.
The fruits contain organic acids, primarily malic, citric, tartaric, and salicylic acids and their salts; sugars (about 3%); traces of essential oil; mucilage; proteins; and many pectin substances. The vitamin C content ranges from 64 to 93 mg%.
Recently discovered in raspberries are alcohols (ethanol, isoamyl, phenylethyl); ketones (acetone, diacetyl, β-ionone); anthocyanins (cyanidin); catechins (d-catechin, l-epigallocatechin); and sterols (β-sitosterol, an antagonist of cholesterol).
Dried raspberries are brewed like tea, either alone or as part of diaphoretic mixtures, and are used as a home remedy for colds (a cup of hot tea at night). Decoctions and infusions of raspberry leaves or stems are widely used in folk medicine to treat colds, bronchitis, laryngitis, and coughs as an expectorant. Infusions of flowers and leaves are also used to treat hemorrhoids.