The lingonberry, vaccinium vitis-idaea, also called cowberry, foxberry, mountain cranberry and mountain bilberry, is a little evergreen shrub, a member of the flowering plant family Ericaceaethe genus Vaccinium that bears edible fruit.


Lingonberry is rarely cultivated, but the fruit berries are commonly gathered in the wild. The native habitat is the woods of northern Eurasia and North America. There are two very similar forms of this fruit bearing plant; Vaccinium vitis-idaea var. vitis-idaea L., (Eurasia) and Vaccinium vitis-idaea var. minus Lodd, (North America).

Both kinds of lingonberry are commonly semi-woody, 10-40 cm in height. They favor some shade and a perpetually moist, acidic soil. Nutrient-poor soils and intense low temperatures, ?40 °C or lower, are tolerated but not basic soils and will grow poorly where summertimes are hot.

Longonberry holds its leaves all winter even in the most ice-cold years. The bell-shaped, white flowers are produced the early summertime. The fruit, in reality a false berry, is red, pear-shaped, acidic, ripening in late summer to autumn, picked up in the wild and very popular in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. Lingonberries are just about always cooked and sweetened prior to eating in the form of lingonberry jam, fruit compote, juice, syrup and integrated in baked goods.

Lingonberries contain ample vitamin C, (ascorbic acid), B vitamins (B1, B2, and B3), provitamin A and the all crucial minerals potassium, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus. In addition lingonberries also contain phytochemicals that are considered to counteract urinary-tract infections, and the seeds are rich in Omega-3 fatty acids.

Propagation of the lingoberry plant is by underground rootstock.

lingonberry, vaccinium vitis-idaea, lingonberries

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