Thornless

'Thornless' is the near-spineless boysenberry that has been the default boysenberry in the American nursery trade for decades, and it is sold under that bare epithet: Monrovia catalogues it as Rubus ursinus x idaeus 'Thornless' and describes it as a nearly thornless selection developed in California from the 1923 'Boysen' cultivar that Rudolph Boysen raised and Walter Knott commercialised at Buena Park from 1932. Gardeners choose it over the original thorny boysenberry for one blunt reason: boysenberries fruit on long trailing canes that must be handled twice a year for pruning and tying, and doing that in a thicket of prickles is miserable. The trade-off is honesty about the name. Monrovia notes the plant is not truly thornless, carrying fewer and smaller thorns, and that fully thorny canes can still push from the crown depending on growing conditions. It remains a soft, fragile, short-season berry grown for home use and preserves rather than shipping.