XXI. 2. THE COMMON CRANBERRY. 405 



XXI. 2. THE CRANBERRY. OXYCO'CCUS. 



Persoon. 



A genus of three North American species, one of which is 

 also European, of creeping or rarely erect plants, with small, 

 alternate, evergreen leaves, and red berries of a pleasant, but 

 extremely acid taste. The calyx is four-toothed ; the corolla 

 has four long, narrow, revolute segments ; the stamens are eight, 

 with tubular, two-parted anthers ; the berry is four-celled and 

 many-seeded. The erect species grows on the highest moun- 

 tains of Carolina, and bears transparent, scarlet berries, of an 

 exquisite flavor ; the other two species are found here. 



Sp. 1. The Common Cranberry. O. macrocarpus. Pursh. 

 Figured in Barton's North American Flora, I, Plate 17. 



Stem prostrate, creeping, near the surface of the earth, to the 

 distance of two or three feet, and throwing out numerous, 

 thread-like roots. Flowering branches erect, with flowers and 

 fruit from the lower part of the shoot, or sarmentose, and erect 

 at the extremity, the bark on the older shoots shivering off in 

 threads, smooth, or sometimes downy, recent ones light brown. 



Leaves on very short footstalks, oval, oblong, entire, or with 

 distant, indistinct teeth, sometimes minutely downy at the end 

 when young, revolute at the margin, green above, whitish be- 

 neath, seldom half an inch long. Flower-stalk thread-like, in 

 the axil of a shortened leaf, an inch long, reflected at the end, 

 downy, with two small, ovate, pointed bracts at the flexure, be- 

 yond which the footstalk is more attenuated, downy and green. 



Flowers nodding, calyx short, persistent; corolla pale-red, 

 very long, revolute ; anthers projecting, very long, somewhat 

 downy below, divided above into two tubes, which open by a 

 somewhat oblique pore. 



Fruit of a bright scarlet color, globular or pear-shaped, with 

 the four blunt teeth of the calyx adhering to it ; four-celled, with 

 numerous seeds attached to the central division. It often re- 

 mains on the vine through the winter, so that it is not uncom- 

 mon to find flowers and mature fruit on the same plant. 



