112 VACCINIUM MACROCARPON. AMERICAN CRANBERRY. 



The European Cranberry, Oxycoccus paliistris, is also found in 

 our country, but it is confined to the mountains and the extreme 

 northern states. Our species is said to occur in Japan, but 

 Dr. Gray doubts the identity of the Japanese form with our own. 

 In regard to the differences between the Great American Cran- 

 berry and the Oxycoccus palustris, Mr. Loudon remarks that the 

 two can be distinguished from one another by the bracteas, 

 which in the Great American Cranberry are situated on the 

 upper part of the pedicel, while in O. palustris they are on 

 the lower part; and Don notes that the berries in our spe- 

 cies, although larger, are not so high-flavored as those of the 

 O. palustris, which come to England from Russia. Dr. Peyre 

 Porcher says that the red-fruited variety yields a juice which 

 has been employed to stain paper or linen purple. 



The hardy perseverance under difficulties, which the poetess 

 sings of, might be further illustrated by the manner in which our 

 plant grows under culture. As we have before noted, its natural 

 place of growth is among grass and other coarse herbage, 

 against which latter, however, it generally manages to hold its 

 own. When the cultivator wishes to improve such a native 

 Cranberry bed, he covers the soil several inches deep with sand, 

 and the coarser weeds, excluded from the light, give up at once 

 and die ; but the Cranberry pushes through to the surface, send- 

 ing out its hair-like roots as it grows, till at length it finds itself 

 in almost undisputed possession of the ground, when it rewards 

 the assistance given it by an abundance of large fruit. The 

 plant is, therefore, a good illustration of the a.xiom that the race 

 is not always to the swift, nor the victory to the strong. 



Our Great American Cranberry is chiefly at home in the 

 northeastern section of the United States. Its most southern 

 point, according to Dr. Chapman, is North Carolina, and thence 

 its boundary seems to take a northwestern direction. 



EXPLANATI0>* OF THE PLATE. — I. A wild plant, githered in Pennsylvania in June. — 2. A 

 branch with fruit, from the same spot, gathered iu February.— 3. Cross section of the 

 four-celled fruit. 



