The taste of August.

Byline: The Register-Guard

A pioneer named James Stevens introduced the Himalayan blackberry to the Willamette Valley in 1850, and it has made itself thoroughly at home. For most of the year, the blackberry is a pest - it's listed as a noxious weed in Oregon. But now is the blackberry's moment of splendor, for nothing surpasses the flavor of a blackberry picked ripe from the cane.

Western Oregon has an abundance of berries, but none is as ubiquitous as the blackberry. Any short walk or bike ride leads past a place where blackberries grow, and right now they're heavy with fruit. Any picnic is certain to be in a place where a tangle of blackberry canes is nearby, providing berries for desert. In any backyard, blackberries are likely to be found in some corner where eradication efforts have failed, and in mid-August those failures are not to be regretted.

The blackberry is everywhere because it's fast-growing, tough and prolific. Canes can grow as much as 23 feet in a season, according to the Oregon State University Extension Service. The shrub forms dense thickets, with up to 525 canes and 13,000 seeds per square meter. In two years' time, a single cane cutting can become a thorn-studded mass 16 feet in diameter. Some will swear that this happens overnight.

The canes may be unwelcome, but the berries they bear in August are worth waiting for. The berries are exquisite in cobblers and crisps, or sprinkled atop ice cream, but they're best eaten on the spot- pick one, pop it in your mouth, pick another, repeat. Each drupelet is saturated with juice of an intense flavor. A blackberry picked a day or two early can be tart, and a blackberry past its prime takes on a seedy texture. But a blackberry plucked at just the right moment is the taste of summer in Western Oregon.

Picking blackberries is easy, a perfect pastime for a lazy summer afternoon - just reach out, and they'll practically fall into your hand. Picking blackberries is also hard, because the best ones are so often a few inches out of reach. Grasping a fat one may require standing on tiptoe and stretching - ouch! - into the thorny canes. Serious pickers will use a plank to gain precarious access to the berries in the middle of a thicket.

Blackberry season is past its peak by the time school begins. As the purple stains fade from fingers, the blackberry reverts to its usual status as a hard-to-control invader. But right now, blackberries are a gift to all who live in this part of the world - a conspiracy of sun and soil to distill the best of both into a single bite. Western Oregon has its gloomy days, and canes have their thorns, but abundant blackberries in August fully compensate for both.