CRANBERRY, arycoccus, a genus of small evergreen shrubs of the natural order vaccine, distinguished from the genus vaccinium (see WHORTLEBERRY) by the wheel shaped corolla, with segments rolled back and the filaments leaning to the pistil. The species are few, natives of the colder regions of the northern hemisphere. The fruit is acid, and is in great request for making tarts. The only British species is the common (0. palustris, formerly raccin[um arycoccus), a native also of the northern parts of Europe, Asia, and America. It grows in peaty bogs and marshy grounds, and is a small wiry shrub with creeping thread-like branches, and small oval leaves rolled back at the edges. The blossoms are small but beautiful, of a deep flesh color. Large quan tities of the fruit are collected in some places in the n. of England, and in other coun tries, although the draining of bogs has now made it scarce where it was once plentiful. In Germany it is collected by means of a wooden comb, and preserved with sugar. In England, cranberries are often preserved in bottles closely corked or filled with pure water, in which they may be kept for a long time. They are an excellent addition to sea stores. Wine is made from them in Siberia, and a beverage made from them is sold in the streets of St. Petersburg.—The AMERICAN C. (0. macrocarpa) is a much larger and more upright plant, with leaves much larger and less rolled back at the margin. The berries are also larger and of a brighter- red. It is a native of North America, frequent in Canada, and as far south as Virginia, growing in bogs, and par ticularly in elevated situations and where the soil is sandy. The berries are collected by means of a rake. Large quantities of them are exported to Europe. Cranberries
are imported into Britain from Russia and other parts of the continent. Both kinds may be cultivated in gardens, in a peat-soil kept very moist, or round the margin of a pond; and the produce of a small space properly managed is so great, that it is surprising that a C. plot should not be much more frequent.—The berries of the red whortleberry (racciniutn ritis idaea) are sold under the name of cranberries in Aberdeen and other places, and are used in the same way.—A third species of C. (0. (recta, formerly raccinium erythrocarpon), a native of lofty mountains in Virginia and Carolina, is a shrub 2 ft. high, and with a habit more like that of the whortleberries than of the other cranberries; it has a fruit remarkable for transparency and of exquisite flavor, and appears to deserve an attention and cultivation which it has not yet received.—The TASMANIAN C. is the fruit of astrolonia hundfusum, a little shrub with trailing stems, leaves somewhat resem bling those of juniper, and beautiful scarlet blossoms, which is found in all parts of Van Dieman's Land. It belongs to the natural order epactidacecr. The fruit is of a green or Whitish color, sometimes slightly red, about the size of a black currant, and consists of a viscid apple-flavored pulp, inclosing a large seed. —Styphelia adscendens, small prostrate Australian shrub 'of the same natural order, has a fruit very similar to this; and in Now South Wales the name C. is likewise given to the red acid berries of his santhe sapida, a low evergreen shrub, with small white flowers, also belonging to epacri, &mem