A low, evergreen, creeping shrub, 6 to 10 in. high, with round, wiry, few-branched stems, covered when young with short, black down. Leaves dark lustrous green, box-like, obovate, often notched at the apex, shortly stalked, 3⁄8 to 1 in. long, about half as wide, the lower surface sprinkled with black dots. Flowers produced during May and June, five to twelve together in terminal racemes less than 1 in. long. Corolla white or pinkish, bell-shaped, rather deeply four-lobed, 1⁄4 in. long. Berries dark red, globular, acid and harsh in flavour, 2⁄5 in. wide.
Considered in a wide sense, this species girdles the globe in high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, and also occurs in many mountain ranges farther south. In the British Isles it is common in Scotland and northern England, and extends through Wales as far south as Somerset and Devon; it also occurs in northern and eastern Ireland. The cowberry is the handsomest of the native vacciniums, the dark glossy foliage making neat, dense tufts. In suitable positions it spreads quickly by means of its creeping root-stock, and makes a useful ground-cover on acid soils. The fruits are palatable when cooked, and put to the same culinary use as cranberries or red currants.
f. majus (Lodd.) Rehd. V. vitis-idaea major Lodd. – Leaves larger than in the typical state, to 13⁄8 in. long. This occurs occasionally in Europe.
subsp. minus (Lodd.) Hultén V. vitis-idaea minor Lodd.; V. v. var. pumilum Hornemann – Smaller in all its parts, the leaves being up to 5⁄8 or 3⁄4 in. long. This replaces the typical state in Arctic regions and in the mountains of N. America.
The specific epithet is an old generic name, Vitis Idaea, meaning ‘Grape of Mt Ida’, and was used by many of the pre-Linnaean botanists for the European vacciniums, but who coined it and why is not recorded.