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Viburnum edule: the real deal |
Description
The small fruiting clusters of V. edule are borne on branches with just 1 pair of leaves |
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Distribution of V. edule (Courtesy of E-Flora BC) |
Viburnum edule is found in the Pacific Northwest from Alaska to northern
Oregon. They are common in Alaska and British Columbia and extend southward
sporadically through the Cascades and foothills to Oregon HWY 20, and are found
to the east in the Columbia range to northeastern Washington, and to the west
along the perimeter of the Olympic Peninsula. Though V. edule is widely distributed throughout the Pacific Northwest, it
is often difficult to locate due to its preference for growing in swamps, the
edges of wet meadows, flood plain forests, and other very wet forests. I
commonly find it with Sitka Spruce, Devil’s Club, and Pacific Yew.
A small bowl of slightly under-ripe Viburnum edule berries |
Abe’s Key to Pacific Northwest Highbush Cranberries
1a Leaf petioles lacking glands; leaves with dentate margins and
shallow lobes; flowers all fertile and opening at the same time, cymes
(flower clusters) usually less than 1 inch across with less than 50
flowers, on lateral branches with only 1 pair of leaves; fruit borne in
small clusters (usually less than 10), sour but very palatable; reclining
to upright shrub rarely exceeding 7 feet tall, inhabiting wet forests,
swamps, and lakeshores:
– Viburnum
edule Highbush Cranberry, Squashberry, Mooseberry.
1b Leaf petioles with glands near the base of the leaf blade; leaves
deeply lobed with +/- dentate margins; cymes 2-3 inches across with a
marginal ring of larger sterile flowers (3/4 inch across) that open before
the central fertile flowers (1/4 inch across), on terminal branches with 2
pairs of leaves; fruit borne in large clusters (usually more than 10);
shrubs 8-15 feet tall – Go to 2.
2a Petiole
glands convex, slightly stalked (may become deformed or shrink as the
season progresses); petiole groove broad and shallow; stipules small and
deciduous; leaves larger at 2-4 inches across with sharply pointed lobes
with scattered to no dentations on the margins; underside of the
leaves pubescent.; fruit sour but edible; limited in our area to
eastern British Columbia (and possible the lower Fraser River valley):
– Viburnum
trilobum, Viburnum opulus
var. americanum, American
Highbush Cranberry, American Cranberrybush.
2b Petiole
glands concave, sessile; petiole groove deep and narrow; stipules long,
conspicuous and persistent; leaves smaller at 1-3 inches across with more
rounded lobes and more dentate margins; pubescence usually limited to the veins on the
underside of the leaf; fruit bitter, sour, and mildly toxic; growing
throughout our area in or near urban areas and old fields:
– Viburnum
opulus var. opulus,
European Highbush Cranberry, European Cranberrybush, Guelder Rose, Cramp
Bark, Snowball Tree.
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Leaves, fruit, and seeds of Viburnum edule (left) and V. opulus (right) |
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Petiole grooves, glands, and stipules of Viburnum edule (left) and V. opulus (right) |
Ethnobotany
Viburnum edule berries don't appear in the ethnographic record very far south of the Puget Sound. They were not commonly eaten by the Coast Salish and Erna Gunther did not include them in the Ethnobotany of Western Washington, although George Gibbs did record a Nisqually name for the berries (1877). Along the Fraser River, the Squamish and Sto:lo have names for the plant and likely picked the fruit, but the ethnographic record is sparse (Turner and Bouchard 1976; Galloway 1982). Further upriver, the Nlaka'pamux (Thompson) traditionally ate the fruit fresh, dried, or cooked into a soup or made into jelly (Turner et al. 1990). Just over the Cascades the Okanagan and Colville traditionally harvested the berries after a frost and ate them fresh (Turner et al. 1980). The more northern Salish on eastern central Vancouver Island collected Highbush Cranberries, and often cooked and served them with oil at large feasts, or ate them raw after a frost had softened the fruit (Turner and Bell 1971). On the other side of Vancouver Island, the Nuu-chah-nulth ate the berries fresh with grease (Turner and Efrat 1982). Northward, the Kwakwaka’wakw steamed partially unripe berries until they became soft and red and stored them in bentwood boxes filled with water and sealed with grease for family use throughout the winter. Only ripe, fresh cranberries served with eulachon grease were eaten at feasts (Turner and Bell 1973). All the Indigenous groups on the North Coast of British Columbia traditionally use the berries. Hanaksiala and Haisla families owned productive bushes and stored the berries in water filled barrels sealed with grease for winter use. They were sometimes prepared with Crabapples (Malus fusca), Kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursa) berries and the False Solonomon’s Seal (Maianthemum racemosum) juice (Compton 1993). The Gitga’at use the berries extensively. They were traditionally stored in barrels or boxes filled with water or whipped grease and served at feasts throughout the winter, often with Crabapples (Malus fusca) and today people make jam or jelly from the fruit. According to Ernie Hill Jr., if the berries are carefully simmered for many hours, the seeds will separate from the pulp and float to the surface where they can easily be skimmed off the top (Turner and Thompson 2006). Further north along the coast, the Haida hold these berries in high esteem. Berry patches were traditionally owned and managed by families and permission was needed to pick from these productive areas. Slightly under-ripe berries are often picked and canned, or in historic times, placed in bentwood boxes filled with water and sealed with grease for use in the winter. The berries are frequently mentioned in Haida mythology are believed to be the food of supernatural beings (Turner 2004). Viburnum edule are similarly used by the Iñupiat in Northwest Alaska, who occasionally eat them seeds and all (Jones 1983)
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V. edule berries at various stages of ripeness |
Many Indigenous People
believe that the plants are becoming scarcer, possibly on account of higher
deer populations (deer over-browse the vegetation (see Turner 2004)), lower
bear populations (bears break limbs off the bushes, stimulating new growth (see
Compton 1993)), and the disruption of traditional management practices.
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The seeds of V. edule are flat like those of squash |
Other common names for Viburnum edule include Mooseberry
(because the shrubs are universally loved by North American ungulates) and
Squashberry (because the flat seeds resemble those of squash). Whether by beast
or human, the plants are definitely deserving the specific epithet edule, which means “edible” in Latin.
References
Compton, Brian Douglas
1993 Upper North Wakashan and Southern Tsimshian Ethnobotany: The Knowledge and
Usage of Plants.... Ph.D. Dissertation, University of British Columbia (p. 232)
Galloway, Brent 1982.
Upper StĂł:lĹŤ Ethnobotany. Coqualeetza Education Training Centre, Sardis BC.
Jones, Anore 1983.
Nauriat Nigiñaqtuat, The Plants That We Eat. Anore Jones and Manilaq
Association, Kotzebue AK.
Gibbs, George 1877.
Dictionary of the Niskwalli. U.S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the
Rocky Mountain Region. Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. 1
Washington DC.
Hitchcock, Leo C. and
Arthur Cronquist 1973. Flora of the Pacific Northwest, and Illustrated Manual. University
of Washington Press, Seattle WA.
Thayer, Samuel. The
Forager’s Harvest. Forager’s Harvest Press, Ogema WI.
Turner, Nancy J. 2004.
Plants of Haida Gwaii. Sono Nis Press, Winlaw BC.
Turner, Nancy J. and
Barbara S. Efrat 1982. Ethnobotany of the Hesquiat Indians of Vancouver Island.
Cultural Recovery Papers No. 2, British Columbia Provincial Museum, Victoria
BC.
Turner, Nancy J. and
Dawn C. Loewen 1998. The Original “Free Trade”: Exchange of Botanical Products
and Associated Plant Knowledge in Northwestern North America. Anthropoligica
Vol. 40, No. 1.
Turner, Nancy J. and
Marcus Bell 1971. The Ethnobotany of the Coast Salish. Economic Botany Vol. 25,
No. 1.
Turner, Nancy J. and
Marcus Bell 1973. The Ethnobotany of the Southern Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia. Economic Botany Vol. 27, No. 3.
Turner, Nancy J. and
Judy Thompson 2006. ’Nwana’a lax Yuup, Plants of the Gitga’at People. Cortex
Consulting, University of Victoria School of Environmental Studies, and Coast
Under Stress MCRI, Victoria BC.
Turner, Nancy J. and
Randy Bouchard 1976. Squamish Ethnobotany. Unpublished manuscript.
Turner, Nancy J. Randy
Bouchard, and Dorothy I. D. Kennedy 1980. Ethnobotany of the Okanagan-Colville
Indians of British Columbia and Washington. Occasional Paper Series No. 21,
British Columbia Provincial Museum.
Turner, Nancy J.
Laurence C. Thompson, M. Terry Thompson, and Annie Z. York 1990. Thompson
Ethnobotany, Knowledge and Usage of Plants by the Thompson Indians of British
Columbia. Memoir No. 3, Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria BC.

Highbush Cranberries are one of the most confusing groups of edible plants in our region on account of poorly...berry plants
ReplyDeleteThanks for the very helpful article.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever tried growing any from seed (V. edule specifically)?
We just moved into a new place and I've got the perfect place for a handful of them.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteMahalo for this very useful information!
ReplyDeleteAulani Johnson
Botanic Techinician I
City of Portland Parks and Rec
What an informative and enlightening article! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThank you for this information and great photos. It is the best online source I found to positively identify highbush cranberries I photographed yesterday in Nikiski, Alaska AKA North Kenai.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Now I know why the fruit of the allegedly native high bush cranberry seedlings I purchased at a native plant sale (one would think that a conservation district would know better) tasted so nasty!
ReplyDeleteI am a high bush cranberry lover. I would say that the reason the berries are becoming scarce is because of the way people harvest the berries. People often break the stem off the bush that holds the bunch of berries. This kills the bush.
ReplyDeleteThe best way to pick the berries is to take your time and carefully and gently remove the berries off the stems, as clean as possible. The orange ones are bitter. Pick only the reddest ones. Careful clean picking will make very little work at home. I suggest that people take the seeds of their berries that they picked and go out and plant them in the wild as much as possible, in place where they like to grow. Just take your finger and scatch a little indentation in the soil and place the seed there and cover it up with a bit of soil. Tamp it a bit. That should do it.
It appears that nature designed the plant to hold the very sour berries all winter, so that when the birds have eaten all the other food by late spring, they will have to eat the most nutritious cranberries.
I would like to see them everywhere they can grow, in abundance. Enough for the people berry lovers and the birds in the spring.
I just purchased two high bush cranberry bush. It was a tough choice because there are so many beautiful native plants. I am glad that the birds do come and eat these berries.
DeleteLuteolin supplements is sometimes called as flavonoid that exists in many types of plants including fruits, vegetables, and medicinal herbs. From here: www.nfextracts.com/luteolin-supplements.
ReplyDeleteHighbush cranberry(Vibernum trilobum and squash berry (Vibernum edule) are two seperate species. Vibernum edule ripens earlier, is shorter and has broader leaves than vibernum trilobum. It also tastes better.They also grow in similar places.
ReplyDeleteI prefer to pick trilobum when they are frozen on the bushes.You can rub handfuls of the frozen berries between your hands to separate the twigs. I then shake the twigs and snow in a 1/4 inch screen to clean them . I then let the berries thaw and I fist them to squeeze out the juice and separate the seeds. I wash the seeds several times with a little water to collect the remaining pulp until the cleaning water starts to clear. I add the cleaning water to the juice.If I start off with a gallon of berries I usually end up with not more than a gallon of juice. I then add sugar until I get density of 1.1 or to your taste. I then scatter the undamaged seeds in a cleared alder bed
We have lots of edule shrubs however we get very few berries.
Who cares exactly?
DeleteI found your comment to be very informative. I must try to make my own juice because the price of pure juice in the store is prohibitive. Thank you for taking the time to share your wisdom.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletewhere can ipick or buy them on Vancouver island
ReplyDeleteFrom Sooke, go west 1.1 km out of town. There is a logging trail (not a road) that winds through the bush. Travel on this trail until you come to the 1st "Y" (about 500 m) and pick the Y on the right. It's a ways from there to the good spot (maybe 5 km and it's bumpy so it will take awhile). You will come to stream and you can get out there and start picking away to your hearts content! You can smell them when you get out of the vehicle! Good luck!!!
DeleteWe learnt that viburnum opulus very useful berry int the world Than we decided to sell it also in our website.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteInformative article, thanks for posting it. I am trying to identify which variety of Highbush Cranberry I have. I purchased this identified as "Viburnum Edule", but I am certain it is not. So I am trying to find out if I have the Trilobum" or "Opulus". Can anyone help me with this? Here are a couple of pictures with the petioles shown.
ReplyDeletehttp://s1044.photobucket.com/user/sunmicroman2/library/
To me the photos look like V. opulus....
ReplyDeleteThe super fruit of anti-oxidents,I have picked 4 gallons so far & am headind to the patch tomorrow for the rest,my wife and I are making many jars of this awesome fruit for friends and family.I use the juice w/honey for a good pick me up,and the pulp w/honey is awesome!
ReplyDelete