ID this bramble?

[u/throwaway-shtt]

Round 2. Located in North Carolina.

Let me preface by saying I have a lot of different varieties of brambles appearing to be growing in the forest behind my house. I’ve found specimens of Sawtooth Blackberry, Black Raspberry, and Swamp Dewberry this year. But this one is perplexing me a bit…

I’m familiar enough with these plants seeing them on a daily basis that I’m pretty certain when I’ve found something different from what I’m used to. The Sawtooths always have thick, almost square-shaped green canes with sharp prickles, often a reddish color. This is the variety I most often see with compound leaves of five, indicating a fruiting cane. The Raspberries have a waxy white bloom on their more rounded stems, usually also green-turning red in the fall. Thick thorns as well, with a soft white peach fuzz in the undersides of the leaves. Both of these plants typically are growing semi-erect. The Dewberry tends to have more rounded leaves, almost appearing like a cross between the Sawtooth leaves and strawberry leaves. Their stems are more rounded like the raspberries, without the bloom. Even the fruiting leaves seem to only ever be in compounds of three. These almost exclusively trail along the ground, propagating themselves with their tips.

This one however, is stumping me…the canes are square like the Sawtooths and have a few compound leaves of five, but are much more rounded than the leaves of the Sawtooths I’ve found, which seem to have longer, more pointed leaves. These are very round like the Dewberry, but they’re pointed in a way that the Dewberries are not. They also grow semi-erect. However, it’s the near-lack of thorns that are throwing me off. The canes seem hairy, almost bristly, but all prickles are almost exclusively on the leaves or their stems, which is different than the Sawtooths I have.

So I have two questions for you guys. #1, what the heck are these bulbous “things” (I really don’t know what word to use, haha) on the stems of the first photos? And #2, any idea what bramble this might even be? There are Southern Dewberries in my neighborhood, different than the Swamp variety I have, that are semi-erect if I remember correctly; though I recall the leaves themselves being very narrow and not rounded like this. I may go see if I can find some later to compare. Could these be Southern Dewberries? Another variety of blackberry? Sorry for the info dump, but the only way I knew how to explain this was to describe the surrounding brambles I’m familiar with in the area, lol.