Mo VACCINIE^- CRANBERRY TRIBE 



overripe, even in smaller quantities, they in some persons cause headache. 

 Many of the vintners of France are said to use them in colouring their wines, 

 and they yield a highly volatile and intoxicating spirit. The Alpine birds 

 feed on these fruits ; and the leaves of the shrub, mixed with the club mosses 

 which so often abound on the spot where the plant grows, are used by the 

 Icelanders in dyeing woollen yarn of a yellow colour. 



* * Leaves evergreen ; anthers uiihoid bristles. 



3. Red Whortleberry, Cowberry {V. vitis-idcea).— -Leaves inversely 

 egg-shaped, dotted beneath, the margins rolled back; flowers in terminal 

 drooping clusters ; perennial. This is a low, somewhat straggling shrub, 

 with firm evergreen leaves, which would at once remind us of the box. It is 

 common in the North on mountainous heaths, and bears, in May and June, 

 small pink flowers with four deep lobes. The berries are red, and they may 

 be made into an excellent jelly, which is far superior to that of the red 

 currant for eating with game or venison. They are not, however, well fitted 

 for eating in their uncooked state; for they are both acid and bitter in 

 flavour, and very astringent in their properties. In Derbyshire, the cow- 

 berry tart is a common dish. In Sweden these fruits are very extensively 

 used, and the jelly into which they are made is eaten with most kinds of 

 roast meat. Linnteus tells us that they were sent in large quantities from 

 AVest Bothnia to Stockholm for pickling, and that a very excellent gargle for 

 inflamed throats is made from them. Small cuttings of this plant are, in 

 Norway, placed in gardens around the edges of the flower-beds, instead of 

 box. A Pennsylvanian species (V. ^e?i^/feTO) furnishes a superior fruit ; and 

 another plant of this genus (F. formosum) is, in China, esteemed a sacred 

 shrub, and its flowers are gathered at the commencement of each year, and 

 placed as offerings on the shrines of the temples. 



4. Marsh "Whortleberry, Cranberry(F'. oxycdccos). — Stem very slender, 

 prostrate, rooting ; leaves egg-shaped, glaucous beneath, the margins rolled 

 back ; corolla wheel-shaped, with four deep reflexed segments ; perennial. 

 This is a very local plant, growing on those Avide-spread heathy bogs which 

 are carpeted by the bright green mosses, and which are dangerous ground to 

 any but the experienced footstep. On many tracts of this kind, in England, 

 Scotland, and Ireland, the low straggling Cranberry bush grows in patches, 

 its tough wiry stems, from eight to ten inches long, bearing in June the 

 solitary terminal flowers, which are on long stalks, of a bright red colour, and 

 have their segments turned back in a remarkable manner. The pleasant 

 acid flavour of the cranberry is well known, and this fruit is gathered both 

 in England and Scotland for sale. Lightfoot mentions that twenty or thirty 

 pounds' worth were sold each market-day, for five or six weeks together, at 

 Langton, on the borders of Cumberland ; and it there forms to this day no 

 inconsiderable article of trade, though most of the cranberries which we see 

 in the shops are sent in casks from America, and large quantities of these 

 fruits are also exported from Poland, Russia, and Germany, into the various 

 countries of Europe. Many people in Cum.berland make wine from cran- 

 berries. They are also preserved in bottles, the fruit needing no preparation, 

 requiring only to be kept in a dry situation. Our English cranberries, 



