VACCINIUM MACROCARPON. 



AMERICAN CRANBERRY. 



NATURAL ORDER, KRICACE^. 



VaCCINIUM MACROCARrON, Aiton. — Stems elongated (one foot to three feet long), the flowering 

 branches ascending ; leaves oblong, obtuse, glaucous underneath, less revolute (than those 

 of F. Oxycocciis), four to six lines long; pedicels several, becoming lateral; filaments 

 scarcely one third the length of the anthers. (Gray's Alamuil of the Botany of the Nortlwni 

 United States. .See also Chapman's Flora of the Southern United States, and (under Oxy- 

 eocciis) Wood's Class-Book of Botany.) 



ivERYBODY knows the Cranberry as a fruit exposed for 

 sale in provision stores, but probably very few people are 

 aware how pretty and interesting a little thing it is as a wild 

 flower. In cultivation the plant changes somewhat, and for this 

 reason we have especially avoided selecting for our illustration a 

 plant from the rich, cultivated cranberry grounds, but have taken 

 one from a boggy meadow in Gcrmantown, Philadelphia, where 

 it grows in company with coarse moss and sedges, and forms a 

 fair part of wild nature. The flowering branches (Fig. i) were 

 gathered early in June, and the fruiting branch (Fig. 2) in Feb- 

 ruary, after the first thaw had taken away the snow beneath 

 which the berries had been safely preserved during the winter. 

 The fruit, as usually found on sale, is richer in color than we 

 have it here, and the temptation to represent it of a dark, deep 

 red would have been strong had we been guided by artistic 

 motives alone. But our plan is to follow wild nature as closely 

 as we can, and we have therefore represented the fruit just as it 

 appeared on our specimen. 



To those who only think of the Cranberry in the shape of 

 sauce, and as an accompaniment to roast turkey, our plant will 



