How to Forage and Use Blackberry Root in the Mountains

Every fence row in the county grows blackberry. Hang a gate and in two years the canes are through it. Most folks curse them in July with a bucket in hand and a scratched arm, and forget them by September.

My grandmother remembered them in the winter. When the briers had dropped their leaves and the ground had gone hard and cold, she’d take a mattock and a pair of leather gloves to the corner of the garden and dig a few roots. A root is the quiet part of a plant, and she knew it was there for use all year.

Blackberry is one of the easiest roots in these mountains to learn, and one of the safest to identify. It isn’t at risk. It grows nearly everywhere. The cold months, with the plant dormant and the leaves gone, are the right time to dig it. I’ll show you how I do it, how I dry it, and the traditional ways it’s been prepared.

Know it in winter

You will likely be digging when the plant has no leaves, so learn it in the bare months, not just in summer.

Rubus, the blackberries and dewberries, make long arching canes, often reddish-purple, armed with curved prickles. First-year canes are green and tall. Second-year canes are brown and woody, the ones that fruit. In winter, dead brown canes with prickles are what you’ll see, tangled together, and a few leathery leaves may hang on in a mild spell.

The surest sign you have the right plant is the roots. They are woody, rope-like, and run just under the surface in long, branching lines, with reddish-brown bark on the outside. Where a cane meets the ground, you’ll see a crown.

Now the part that matters most in winter. Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) often grows in the same fence row, and in the cold months it’s a leafless, hairy, rope-like vine climbing trees and posts. The urushiol oil that causes the rash is still in the bare stems and the roots, and it stays potent for years. I have seen more than one friend get a bad case digging in January. Look for hairy ropes on the trunk of a tree or tangled around the brier patch, and if they’re there, dig somewhere else. Wear gloves and long sleeves regardless, and wash up when you’re done. I wrote more in dangerous look-alikes of Appalachian medicinals.

Never use a wild plant on the word of one book, one app, or one blog post, including this one. Confirm with several good guides and, if you can, with someone who has dug it before. When in doubt, leave it.

Where to dig

Choose a clean spot. Fence rows and power-line cuts are among the most heavily sprayed places in the mountains. Utility companies spray briers on purpose. Don’t dig on a right-of-way, along a road, or anywhere you aren’t sure what’s been put down. Dig in an old garden corner, a hay-field edge, or a fence row on land whose owner knows you and said yes.

How to dig it

Dig from late fall through winter, once the leaves are down and before the sap rises in early spring. Pick a cane and trace the ground out from its base. You’re looking for a lateral root about as thick as a pencil to your thumb, running near the surface.

Push the hori-hori in alongside the root and work the soil loose, following the root as it runs. A good section is a foot or two long. Cut it clean with the knife, and fill the hole back in. Don’t strip the plant. Blackberry is tough, but there’s no reason to take more than you need, and I dig only what I’ll dry for the year.

Wear thick gloves for all of it. Dormant canes still bite.

Cleaning and drying

Scrub the roots under cold running water with a stiff brush until the dirt is gone. Don’t peel them. The bark has most of the astringent quality folks wanted from it. Cut the roots into pieces about as long as your thumb, splitting any thick ones lengthwise so they dry through.

Lay them on a screen or a clean cloth in a dry, airy spot out of the sun. Our winters are damp, and a root that isn’t fully dry will mold in the jar, so give it two or three weeks and use a fan if the air is heavy. Dry root should snap, not bend. I explain how I handle storing roots through damp weather in how to clean and dry medicinal roots after the dig and in how to store mountain herbs through a humid winter.

Pack the dry pieces in a clean mason jar, label it with the plant and the date, and keep it cool and dark. Dry root keeps well for a year.

How it was traditionally prepared

This is traditional-use information about how people have prepared the root, and what I watched in my own family. It is not medical advice, it doesn’t claim to treat anything, and I’m not giving doses. If you’re pregnant, nursing, or on prescription medication, talk with someone qualified first.

A decoction. Roots are tough, so they want simmering. My grandmother put a small handful of dried, chopped root in a pot with about a quart of water, brought it up to a boil, then covered it and let it simmer gently for twenty to thirty minutes. She strained it through cloth. It comes out a deep brown and puckery, the kind of astringent that dries your mouth. Folks in these mountains brewed it for a loose stomach, a use recorded in folk herbals across the South. I watched her take a small cup of it now and then. It was never a daily habit.

A leaf tea. Blackberry leaf, picked in spring or summer, makes a milder tea, and it’s the gentler place to start if you’ve never used the plant. Dry the leaves, steep a spoonful in a cup of hot water for ten minutes, and strain.

For Cherokee uses of this plant, go to the published sources rather than taking my word. Hamel and Chiltoski’s Cherokee Plants and Their Uses is a good place to start. That knowledge belongs to the Cherokee people, and I credit it to them.

What I’d tell a beginner

Start with the leaf, not the root. Learn the plant across the seasons: the green canes in spring, the white flowers in May, the fruit in July, the bare brown briers in January. When you can name it in all of those, dig a small section of root and dry it. Take your time. A root will keep until you’re ready.

Learning this plant takes a year. Knowing every other plant in the cove behind your house takes longer. That’s what I put into my book, Appalachian Medicinal Plants: how to identify each plant without guessing, when to gather it, and what the mountain people before us did with it. Blackberry is as good a first root as any.