Seeing red

Whether the jewel-like native of Britain's bogs or the North American cousin of the Christmas table, the cranberry is a fruit of fascinating biological and cultural prestige

- Deborah Nicholls-Lee

IN the lowland bogs of Britain, the creeping, jewel-like cranberry emerges from tiny pink lantern-shaped flowers, acquiring its characteristic scarlet blush as the weather cools and our thoughts turn to Christmas. Meeker than its North American relatives, it is yet to make it into the ruby-red sauce that we spoon onto our plates over the festive season. That prize is reserved for the plump and showy Vaccinium macrocarpon, shipped from the New World to our shores (and kitchens), where it is boiled with sugar, citrus and spices into a soft pulp interspersed with its chewy, tannic skins: sweet, but sharp in the mouth.

Meanwhile, our native cranberry species continue their lives in the rain-soaked peatlands of the British countryside, existing among sphagnum moss and drinking water as acidic as lemon juice. Vaccinium oxycoccos, sometimes called the ‘northern cranberry’, is the most common species and is concentrated in the northwest, whereas its little sister, V. microcarpum, or ‘small cranberry’, is almost entirely confined to the north of Scotland.

‘The berries on the American one are probably about four times the size of the ones you’ll find on our plants,’ says Emma Hinchliffe, director of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) UK peatland programme. She describes our native cranberries as pleasingly festive in appearance: ‘A little bit like a string of fairy lights, with the leaves being the green bulbs, and then, occasionally, you’ll get a bigger red bulb, which is the berry itself.’ These tart little fruits, nestling alongside evenly spaced teardrop-shaped leaves, emerge in autumn, turning from white to red, and continue through winter, providing sustenance to birds and small mammals.