cranberry, any of several small creeping or trailing plants of thegenusVaccinium (familyEricaceae) and their tartedible red fruits. In regions where they are grown, cranberries are a popular pie filling, their juice is widely marketed as a beverage, and in sauce and relish form cranberries are traditionally associated with U.S. and CanadianThanksgiving andChristmas meals.

Physical description

The stems of cranberry plants are wiry and creeping. Theleaves areevergreen, oval or elliptical, and less than 1.2 cm (0.5 inch) long. Small, bell-shapedflowers appear in June and have a four-lobed rose-tinted corolla. The round crimsonberries, which ripen in September, are about the size of currants and are often spotted; they have anacid taste. False-blossom virus and various types of fruit rot are the maindiseases affecting cranberry plants. Commercial vines are protected from frost by flooding.

Cultivation

Cranberries arecultivated on acidsoils ofpeat or vegetable mold with a surface layer of sand. Additional sand is applied every few years. The American cranberry is grown extensively inMassachusetts,New Jersey, andWisconsin and near the Pacific coast inWashington andOregon. Berry harvesting begins in early September and continues until late October. Commercial fields are commonly flooded, and the ripe, floating fruits are scooped from the water surface. Most cranberry products are consumed in theUnited States and Canada.

Britannica Quiz

A World of Food Quiz

Major species

TheAmerican cranberry (V. macrocarpon) is the most commercially important species and is found wild in the greater part of the northeastern United States. It isrobust with round, oblong, or pear-shaped berries that vary in colour from pink to very dark red or mottled red and white. Thesmall-fruited, or northern, cranberry (V. oxycoccos) is found in marshy land in northernNorth America and Asia and in northern and central Europe and is of local importance.

Other fruits of species in the genusVaccinium are also known as cranberries. Thelingonberry, or cowberry (V. vitis-idaea), also known as mountain or rock cranberry, is not cultivated but is used in northern Europe and by Scandinavians in the United States. Thesouthern cranberry, or redhuckleberry (V. erythrocarpum), is found in mountainous areas fromWest Virginia to Georgia; its large berries are dark red in colour and of exceptionally fine flavour. The fruit of the cranberry tree (seeViburnum) is sometimes substituted for true cranberries in Canada and the northern United States.