Cranberry, canneberge gros fruits

Oxycoccus macrocarpus (Aiton) Persoon

Plants often ascending, shoots 0.4-1.5 dm. Leaf blades glaucous abaxially, green adaxially, usually narrowly elliptic to elliptic, rarely oblong, 5-18 m 2-55 mm, margins entire, slightly revolute. Inflorescences in axils of leaflike bracts at base of current year’s shoots. Pedicels nodding, slender, 2-3 cm, bracteolate; bracteoles 2, greenish white, scalelike, 1-2 mm wide. Flowers: calyx lobes relatively small; corolla strongly reflexed at anthesis, white to pink; filaments hairy; anther tubules 1-2 mm. Berries red to pink, 9-14 mm diam., smooth. 2n = 24.

Flowering late spring-early summer. Bogs, swamps, mires, wet shores and headlands; 0-1400 m; St. Pierre and Miquelon; B.C., N.B., Nfld. and Labr. (Nfld.), N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que.; Conn., Del., D.C., Ill., Ind., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Oreg., Pa., R.I., Tenn., Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis.; introduced in Europe.

Vaccinium macrocarpon is introduced and escaping elsewhere (British Columbia, Oregon, Washington) with respect to its normal range in eastern North America.

SELECTED REFERENCES Bruederle, L. P., M. S. Hugan, and J. M. Dignan. 1996. Genetic variation in natural populations of the large cranberry, Vaccinium macrocarpon Ait. (Ericaceae). Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 123: 41-47. Ogle, D. W. 1984. Phytogeography of Vaccinium macrocarpon Aiton in the southern United States. Virginia J. Sci. 35: 31-47. Upton, R., ed. 2002. Cranberry Fruit: Vaccinium macrocarpon Aiton. Standards of Analysis, Quality Control, and Therapeutics. Santa Cruz.