In Europe, raspberry stems from a wild species still abundant today in the temperate regions. This relatively homogeneous species, Rubus idaeus was named by Carl Linnaeus, the great Swedish botanist of the eighteenth century, in memory of Pliny the Elder (1st century AD) who in his Natural History mentions it as abundant on Mount Ida Greece. Pliny considered the Mount Ida as the sole production center of raspberry. Probably it is just one chance, and do not consider this place as the cradle of raspberry.
As crop, red raspberry is quoted for the first time in 1548 by the English herbalist Turner reports having met several of the country gardens. It was not until nearly a century before William Dawson again evokes the culture.
The pedigree of raspberry are really acquired until 1629 when his work in Parkinson Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris devotes a chapter to what he calls "The Rapis Berrie" which he described two types, depending on the color red or white fruit.
In France, La Maison Rustique in its new edition of 1732 already gives all main lines of a culture that has changed relatively little since. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the raspberry is not considered a dessert fruit, but rather intended for the extraction of perfumes, the manufacture of beverages or medicines. In the Americas, we find traces of the first cultivated raspberries in 1771.
Four varieties are offered in a catalog of upstate New York. It is likely that the variety "Red Français" or "Common Red" has appeared before that date. Although not knowing the exact origin of the first American variety, the description is made by William Robert Prince in her book Pomological Manual from 1832 suggests it is already a hybrid between a red raspberry ( can be Rubus strigosus) and a blackberry black wild Atlantic Coast (probably Rubus occidentalis).
By keeping at Raspberry its ancient name of Ida Bramble (Rubus idaeus), botanists seem to have intended, contrary to their habits, make a concession to poetry because it's in the brains of poets has germinated the tradition which gives it the cradle forested flanks of Mount Ida. It was quite natural they were willing to surround with a halo of mythology the shrub which bears fruit that nature modeled with the most convenience, this fruit with translucent complexion makes us dream of moving each coral beads a drop of virginal blood, the blood of a nymph, if one believes the legend.
Once all the raspberries were white. But one day than Jupiter, still very young, resounded the echoes of the mountain shouting furiously to make the deaf Corybantes themselves, the nymph Ida, daughter of Melissus king of Crete, tried to soothe him pick a raspberry, she pricked herself in the breast on the thorns of the bush. The blood of the nymph forever dyed bright red fruit.