Text: Native Plant Crossroads. Photo: Bunchberry, Cornus canadensis. Text logo: nature.ca / Canadian Museum of Nature.

Large cranberry, Vaccinium macrocarpon S84-5476.

Large cranberry, Vaccinium macrocarpon.

Large cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) is the species that is the source of the many commercially cultivated forms of cranberry. At 1 cm or more in length, the berries of this species are particularly large, considering the small size of the plant: the flowers are about 1 cm long, and the plant is 10 cm to 20 cm tall. The name 'cranberry' comes from 'craneberry', as English colonists in Massachusetts called them because the blossoms and stems resemble the head and neck of a crane.

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Image: Donald R. Gunn
This image is from a page of Native Plant Crossroads, a Web site created by the Canadian Museum of Nature. Visit the site.