WorldFloraDB - Vaccinium macrocarpon

Characteristics

A perennial shrub. It grows 0.9 m high and spreads 1.5-3 m wide. It is low growing and evergreen. It forms roots as it spreads. The leaves are dark green. They are lighter underneath. The leaves are 5-8 mm long by 2-3 mm wide. The leaves have round tips and edges that roll under. The flowers are mauve. The stamens are longer than the petals. The flower stalks are slender and curved. The fruit are red. They are 12-20 mm across. They have 4 locules full of seeds. The seeds are small and there can be a few or up to 50 in each fruit. The fruit deepen in colour as they ripen. There are many named cultivated varieties.

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Evergreen trailing shrub with very slender stems; lvs leathery, subsessile, elliptic-oblong, 5–15 mm (the largest usually > 1 cm), rounded at the tip, flat or scarcely revolute; fls 2–6 in a cluster, solitary in the axils of the reduced lower lvs of a normal branch; pedicels 1–3 cm; bracteoles above the middle of the pedicel, green, 2–4 × 1–2 mm; cor white to pink, 1 cm wide, deeply 4-cleft, the lobes strongly reflexed; styles 5–7 mm; fr red, 1–1.5 cm, tart; 2n=24. Bogs; Nf. to Man., s. to Va., O., and n. Ill., and locally in the mts. to N.C. and Tenn. June–Aug. (Oxycoccus m.)

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.

Life form

perennial

Growth form

shrub

Growth support

free-standing

Foliage retention

evergreen

Sexuality

hermaphrodite

Pollination

Spread

-

Mature width (meter)

0.8 - 1.25

Mature height (meter)

0.15 - 0.2

Root system

creeping-root

Rooting depth (meter)

-

Root diameter (meter)

-

Flower color

Blooming months

Jan	Feb	Mar
Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep
Oct	Nov	Dec

Fruit color

Fruiting months

-

Nitrogen fixer

-

Photosynthetic pathway

-

Environment

It is a temperate plant. They grow in sandy bogs that are irrigated. It grows in damp acidic soils mainly between 40°N and 50°N. It needs a very acidic soil. A pH of 4.0-5.5 is suitable. It suits hardiness zones 2-9.

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Acid boggy ground. Bogs, swamps, mires, wet shores and headlands; at elevations from sea level to 1,400 metres.

Light
Soil humidity
Soil texture
Soil acidity
Soil nutriment	-
Hardiness (USDA)

Usage

The fruit are used for pies, tarts, relishes and for sauce. They are used for juice. They are especially used for cranberry sauce with turkey meat. The dried fruit are called craysons.

Uses	food gene source medicinal
Edible	fruits
Therapeutic use	Pulmonary Aid (unspecified), Scurvy (unspecified), Cancer (unspecified)
Human toxicity	-
Animal toxicity	-

Cultivation

Plants are usually grown from prunings from old plants. Cuttings can be used. They are pushed well into the damp ground leaving only about 5 cm exposed. Conditions should be moist and humid but not waterlogged.

Mode	cuttings seedlings
Germination duration (days)	365
Germination temperacture (C°)	18 - 23
Germination luminosity	-
Germination treatment	-
Minimum temperature (C°)	-45
Optimum temperature (C°)	-
Size	-
Vigor	-
Productivity	-