A modern reference to temperate woody plants, including updated content from this site and much new material, can be found at Trees and Shrubs Online.

Oxycoccus

Family

Ericaceae

Common names

Cranberries

Only three species of Oxycoccus are known, which, although closely allied to Vaccinium, are very distinct in their long, slender, wiry, creeping stems, clothed with alternate leaves, and still more in the corolla, the four parts of which are so deeply divided that they become practically separate petals.

The cranberries like a moist or semi-boggy, peaty soil, and can be increased by seed or by layers. They have little garden value, although a broad patch of either kind forming a dense mass of interlacing stems is interesting and unusual. The berries are used for making tarts and in confections of various kinds.


From the Supplement (Vol. V)

It now seems to be generally accepted by botanists expert in the Ericaceae that Oxycoccus should be included in Vaccinium – or rather re-included in it, for its type-species O. palustris was originally described by Linnaeus as Vaccinigm oxycoccos.

Species articles