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Northern Ontario Plant Database |
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Plant Description
Viburnum opulus var. americanum Aiton
highbush cranberry, American cranberry bush, cranberry viburnum; Fr: quatre-saisons des bois, viorne trilobée; Ojibway (Anishinabe): niibimin, aniibmiin., aniibiminagaawashk
Adoxaceae - Viburnum Family
Click on thumbnail to see larger image.
General: A tall, deciduous shrub, to about 4 m high, with maple-like leaves and beautiful, showy flowers. Branches smooth (glabrous); terminal buds absent, twig ending in a long, thin stalk - the remains of the old flowering stalk; lateral bud with 2, valvate scales.
Nomenclatural Notes: This shrub is probably best known by the synonym Viburnum trilobum Marhsall, but the typical variety of this shrub, Viburnum opulus var. opulus (European cranberry bush, guelder rose, cramp bark), which grows in Eurasia, varies little from our North American variety and most botanists believe it should only be recognized as a variety of Viburnum opulus. The snowball bush, a showy form of the European variety, is often planted in gardens. In this form, all of the flowers are large and sterile
Leaves: Opposite, simple, petiolate. Leaf blade 5-11 cm long; ovate to broadly ovate, 3-lobed, palmately-veined. The grooved petioles bear a pair of elongate glands near the leaf attachment and long thin stipules near the petiole base. Terminal leaf pairs with long-pointed (long-acuminate) lobes; bases cuneate to nearly rounded, margins entire to slightly blunt-toothed. Lower leaf pairs broader, with rounded to truncate bases, shorter lobes, and coarsely-toothed margins.
Flowers: : Bisexual, white, arranged in large, flat-topped terminal clusters (cymes), 4-15 cm across; marginal flowers sterile, with enlarged, flat, 5-lobed corollas; fertile flowers small, calyx small, inconspicuous; corolla 5-lobed; stamens 5, adnate to and extending beyond the corolla (exserted); ovary inferior. Flowers bloom in mid summer.
Fruit: An ellipsoid to globose, reddish-orange to red, berry-like drupe, 6-12 mm long, with one flat seed inside the stony pit; fruits persist on the shrub overwinter. Edible, juicy and tart, usually used in making jam. Like squashberry, the ripe fruits of highbush cranberry have a strong musky smell that persists through cooking, but is absent in the resulting jams and jellies; ripening in late summer.
Habitat and Range: Along streambanks and shorelines, damp woods, swamps, and peatlands. The highbush cranberry is native to boreal North America; it extends north to James Bay and Lake-of-the-Woods, to about 52° N (Soper & Heimburger 1982)
Similar Species: The 3-lobed leaves of the highbush cranberry may be confused with those of squashberry (Viburnum edule), but the latter shrub has more sharply-toothed margins and smaller flower clusters terminal on lateral shoots, with flowers all of the same size. See the Viburnum edule webpage. Highbush cranberry, the common name for Viburnum opulus var. americanum in central and eastern Canada, is applied to Viburnum edule in British Columbia.
Internet Images:
This image of the ripening fruits of highbush cranberry are from the Flora and Fauna of the Upper Ottawa Valley website.
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