THE CROWBERRY FAMILY 
[ORDER LXXV. EMPETRACE/E] 
T HIS family consists of some half dozen or so evergreen heath-like shrubs, whose branches 
are thickly covered with stiff rolled-back leaves, one species only being found in the 
British Isles. The affinities of the order are obscure; some botanists place it near the Heath 
Family (Ericaceae) and others by the Spurge Family (Euphorbiaceae). 
It inhabits arctic, antarctic, and northern temperate regions. 
Its members are not of much use. The rather insipid berry of one native species — the Black 
Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) — is eaten in arctic regions in lieu of better fruit as a preventive of 
scurvy. 
CROWBERRY. (EMPETRUM. Linn.) — Flowers minute, in the axils of the leaves, with the 
male flowers — those with stamens — on one plant and the female — those without stamens and with 
perfect pistils — on another. Perianth in 2 rows of 3 lobes, the outer leathery and the inner 
petal-like (petaloid), with 6 smaller scale-like bracts at the base, free from and inserted below the 
seedcase ; stamens 3, inserted below the seedcase (hypogynous), or o, or imperfect ; carpels 6-9, 
united into a seedcase with the same number of cells, 1 short style, and a stigma with the same 
number of spreading lobes, or imperfect in the male flowers ; fruit a round fleshy berry, with 
6-9 minute stones, each containing 1 seed. Small heath-like shrubby plants with crowded 
evergreen leaves, narrow, and with entire rolled-back (revolute) margins. 
Black Crowberry, Crakeberry. (Empe trum nigrum. Linn.) — The only British 
species. As just described. The minute flowers are red and stalkless (sessile) in the axils of the 
leaves ; the inner petals reflexed and of a crimson red, the outer erect, yellowish-green marked 
with red ; the stamens protruding in the male flowers ; the stigmas 9 in number ; the berry round, 
intensely black when ripe, and containing 9 minute i-seeded nuts; the stems are 3-18 inches 
long, prostrate, much branched, and densely covered, except at the base, with small narrow leaves, 
whose margins are so much rolled back that they almost meet, just leaving visible a white line of 
the under surface of the leaf. [ Plate 48. 
Common on mountain heaths in western and northern England, in Scotland, and in Ireland. 
April — June. Perennial. 
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