Crowberry - Empetrum nigrum

(Heath Family)

Identification

Crowberry, E. nigrum, ranges from northern Alaska and the Yukon to California. Subspecies nigrum has male and female flowers on separate plants, whereas subspecies hermaphroditum has bisexual flowers. ^[Schofeld]

"Empetrum nigrum is an evergreen Shrub growing to 0.3 m (1ft) by 0.5 m (1ft 8in).
It is hardy to zone (UK) 3 and is not frost tender. It is in leaf 12-Jan It is in flower from May to June, and the seeds ripen in September. The flowers are dioecious (individual flowers are either male or female, but only one sex is to be found on any one plant so both male and female plants must be grown if seed is required) and are pollinated by Bees, flies, lepidoptera.The plant is not self-fertile.
Suitable for: light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils and prefers well-drained soil. Suitable pH: acid and neutral soils and can grow in very acid soils.
It can grow in semi-shade (light woodland) or no shade. It prefers moist soil. The plant can tolerates strong winds but not maritime exposure."[PFAF]

Status: Native. ^[E-flora]

Habitat / Range Low, exposed coastal heathlands and bogs; rocky mountain slopes, subalpine parkland, and alpine tundra; dry to wet sites, sea level to alpine. ^[PCBC2004] Wet to moist bogs, meadows, open forests, alpine fellfields and cliffs in the lowland to alpine zones; frequent throughout BC; circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to NY, MN and N CA; Eurasia. ^{[IFBC-E-flora]}

Ecological Indicator Information

A shade-intolerant, submontane to alpine, circumpolar, evergreen shrub (transcontinental in North America). Grows on a wide range of sites in tundra, boreal, and cool mesothermal climates. Most often in nitrogen-poor soils in semi-terrestrial communities (peat bogs) where it inhabits topographic prominences. An oxylophytic species characteristic of Mor humus forms. [IPBC]^[E-flora]

Hazards

• Overconsumption may lead to constipation.
  • Among the northern peoples, they were often a staple, although some Haida people say that they cause hemorrhaging if too many are eaten. ^{[Turner, Kuhnlein]}
  • If you eat a lot of Paurngait berries, the stool hardens. It is okay if you eat them with meat, but if you just eat the berries alone you'll get constipated. Ootoova et al. (2001)^[FCAA]

Edible Uses

• Berries The purplish black shiny fruits are very juicy and sweet but contain a number of large, hard seeds (Porsild 1957). ^[FCAA] Raw or cooked. ^[Berries] " berries eaten raw, preserved by Inuit and other northern First Peoples; important emergency food."[ETWP]
  • Harvesting: Ripen in August, but remain on plants through the winter. ^{[Turner, Kuhnlein]} The fruit can hang on the plant all winter [172].^[PFAF] In Alaska, large numbers of crowberries were picked in late summer. (Ager and Ager 1980).^[FCAA] They ripen in late summer and remain on the branches throughout the autumn. In some localities they are very plentiful and can be pulled off the stems a handful at a time. ^[EFNC] The berries can often be found on the plants right through the winter, and are improved by repeated freezing and thawing. ^[UWP]
  • Preparation: Raw or cooked. Used in pies and jelly. ^{[Turner, Kuhnlein]} Raw or cooked[1, 2, 3, 5, 65]. A watery flavour, it is mainly used for making drinks, pies, preserves etc [183].^[PFAF] Berries make good jam and are tasty when eaten alone or when mixed with other berries. ^[FCAA] They are said to "contain lots of water" and were used by the Fisherman Lake Slave to slake the thirst on the mountain slopes when no water was at hand. ^{[Turner, Kuhnlein]}
    • Cooking lessens the bad taste but doesn't soften the seeds. ^[Berries]
      • The frozen berries would be thawed and mashed together with seal blubber or whale oil to produce a kind of puddin, considered a great treat. ^[EFNC]
      • Berries can be stewed with sugar and eaten with cream or ice cream. ^[EFNC] Stew crowberries with honey and lemon juice as topping for ice cream.^[Schofield]
  • Preservation: The Inuit dry or freeze them for winter use [183]. ^[PFAF] Stored in seal oil for use in fall and winter (Ager and Ager 1980).^[FCAA] Tanana, Upper Food (Winter Use Food) Berries preserved alone or in grease and stored in a birchbark basket in an underground cache. ^[UMDEth] Sometimes mixed with bear grease, and cooked and mashed then dried in the sun in cakes. Mixed whole with greens and other berries and seal oil, they were stored in a seal poke, or other airtight container. ^{[Turner, Kuhnlein]}
    • Wine: Rink (1857) claimed that a sparkling white wine may be produced by fermentation of the juice. Berries are used to make wine in Iqaluit (Mary Ellen Thomas, personal communication, 2006). ^[FCAA] For an evening nightcap, crowberry wine and beer are popular. Berry liqueur is easy to prepare, and delicious made with crowberries, blueberries, raspberries, or cranberries. ^[Schofield]
  • Properties: mild-flavored & juicy. ^{[Turner, Kuhnlein]} It can taste slightly acid or insipid[101]. Not very desirable[11], it tastes best after a frost[172].^[PFAF] Sour and taste like the smell of turpentine. ^[Berries] Best when mixed with other fruits, such as blueberries, and are said to improve with freezing. ^[EFNC] They are very healthy to eat, juicy, and crunchy.^[FCAA]
• Tea A tea can be made from the twigs [183]^[PFAF] Brewed as a beverage tea.^{[Turner, Kuhnlein]} According to Napaskiak informants, the people living along the adjacent Bering Sea coast brewed tea from this plant, using the entire plant. [Oswalt Eskimo]

Other Uses

• Dye: A purple dye is obtained from the fruit[115]. ^[PFAF].
• Ground Cover: Can be used for groundcover in exposed locations[200]. Plants should be spaced about 25cm apart each way[208]. ^[PFAF]
• Misc Uses:
  • Crowberry branches made nice mattresses for iqluit (loosely woven summer mattress. Interpretation by N. Hallendy 2003).^[FCAA] Eskimo used the leaves as a storage pit liner. [Helaine_Selin]
  • The branches with the leaves attached were used to clean gun barrels (Ootoova et al. 2001).^[FCAA]

Medicinal Uses

• Leaves:
  • Poultice: Formerly, leaves were boiled in water and made into a poultice to soothe pain. [Ethftyukon] "Another record from the Inner Hebrides, from Colonsay, credits its juice with the power to heal sores that are festering.177"[MPFT]
  • Tea: They [leaves] were also boiled into a tea used for chest congestion and sour stomach. [Ethftyukon]
• Berries:
  • Scurvy: Settlers and sailors used berries to prevent scurvy.^[Berries].
  • Kidney Aid: Decoction of leaves and stems taken for kidney troubles.^[Kari] Juice from berries drank as a medicine for the kidneys. ^{[Turner, Kuhnlein]}
• Diarrhea
  • Tea: Drank for diarrhea. ^{[Turner, Kuhnlein]} Andrew and Fehr (2000) noted that a tea was made by collecting and boiling the roots, berries, and stems of this plant and that some Gwich'in people considered it as good as spruce gum tea for stomach aches and bad colds.^[FCAA] Infusions of twigs and stems have been administered for colds, kidney troubles, and tuberculosis. ^[Schofield] "The Tanaina used the cooked berries and a tea from the plant for diarrhea." ^{[Turner, Kuhnlein] [Schofield]} A tea of the leaves has been used to treat dysentery. ^[UWP]
  • Decoction or infusion of stems taken for diarrhea. Berries cooked and eaten for diarrhea.^[Kari]
  • The berries were recommended for a person who had diarrhoea and are reputedly more effective in hardening watery stools than Kigutangirnait (blueberries, bilberries). ^[FCAA]
• Eye Medicine: Cooled decoction of roots used as an eyewash to remove a growth.^[Kari] Kobuk River Eskimos use crowberry juice in sore eyes to relieve snowblindness. Decoctions of the roots and bark have also been used for sore eyes and cataracts. ^[Schofield]
• Cold Remedy: Decoction of leaves, stems, Hudson bay tea and young spruce tree tip used for colds.^[Kari] The twigs were brewed as a tea by some Inuit groups. and the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands boiled the branches with other wild herbs to make a medicine for tuberculosis, colds. and many other ailments.^[EFNC]
• Insomnia: "...found in use in the Inner Hebrides by Martin Martin in 1695 as a cure for insomnia, a little of it boiled in water and applied to the crown and temples.175" [MPFT]

Cultural & Historical Use

• Porsild (1950) stated that because of its abundance and hardiness, the crowberry, although not as well flavoured as some other berries, is easily the most important fruit in Arctic regions. ^[FCAA]
• The Scottish Highlanders use the crowberry sparingly. In Norway and Lapland crowberry wine is made, and in Siberia crowberry juice is drunk mixed with water. ^[EFNC]
• The people of Kamchatka Peninsula eat the berries mixed with fish, and make puddings by mixing them with the cooked bulbs of mission-bells (Fritillaria camschatcensis). ^[EFNC]
• Berries used to make it'suh, a desert prepared from pounded dry fish. (Recipe: take the fish broth from boiled white fish, add a pail of blackberries, enough sugar to sweeten it up, and a dipper of fish blood, heart, and liver. Cook this mixture until it is just like jam.)^[FCAA]
• Berries make a delicious desert when mixed with grated caribou fat, seal fat, and a little water. The mixture is carefully whipped and requires experience to get the best results (Eva Aariak, personal communication, 2006). Suvalik is a similar mixture of the berries with char eggs (Mary Ellen Thomas, personal communication, 2006). ^[FCAA]
• They are delicious when mixed with caribou fat. As the weather gets colder, crowberries and other berries start to freeze on the ground. When it starts melting again, berries from the year before become visible and can even be eaten then. Augujjiaq refers to picking berries with a bowl with holes in it to drain the snow out. The bowl was used as a filter. People would dig in the snow, and put the berries into the bowl. The berries were not dried up. To store the berries, a hole could be made in the sand and some fat poured in. When the fat hardened the berries were put in, and the hole covered with seal skin. After the hole was covered it was further buried for a winter supply. The berries were found to keep very fresh." ^[FCAA]

Pharmacology

• Diuretic: Leafy branches used, especially for children with a fever, as a diuretic. [XI]^[UMDEth]
• Cathartic: Decoction of green leaves taken as a purgative.[X]^[UMDEth] "Bella Coola: Green leaves, with or without berries, boiled, and the decoction taken internally as a purgative." [Smith(1927)]

Phytochemicals

• Kallio et al. (1984) found that in E. nigrum the content of glucose was 2.8 ± 0.1 g/100 mL, fructose 2.6 ± 0.1 g/100 mL, and the sugar alcohol inositol 0.02 g/100 mL. Traces of galactose were identified. Sucrose was absent in all samples (less than 0.01 mg/100 mL).^[FCAA]
• Puntari et al. (1985) extracted volatiles from the black berries of the crowberry, Empetrum nigrum, with steam distillation and capillary GLC-MS analysis and found 33 volatile compounds, among which benzoic acids and benzyl alcohol were the main ones. Fifteen compounds known to exist in blueberries (bilberry, bog blueberry, and high-bush blueberry) were found in crowberry. Esters of hydroxy acids, which are most important and characteristic of bilberries, were totally absent, which explains the very mild aroma of crowberry that is otherwise similar to that of blueberries. ^[FCAA]
• Matsuura et al. (1995) documented the occurrence of antibacterial and antifungal compounds in Empetrum nigrum.^[FCAA]
• 0.074% Alkaloid content of leaves [TAV.33,1973]

Lore
A locally abundant plant of moors, at one time regarded as a berry-bearing form of heather (‘Erica baccifera’), Empetrum nigrum was found in use in the Inner Hebrides by Martin Martin in 1695 as a cure for insomnia, a little of it boiled in water and applied to the crown and temples.175 It was presumably the ‘kind of heath’ claimed by a later author to be in use for the same purpose in ‘the Highlands’,176 but the description of its application is so similar that the record may be an unacknowledged repeat of Martin’s. Another record from the Inner Hebrides, from Colonsay, credits its juice with the power to heal sores that are festering.177[MPFT]

Uses
The berries are eaten by the Scotch and Russian peasantry. The fruits are black, about the size of juniper berries, of a firm, fleshy substance and are insipid in taste. They are consumed in a ripe or dry state by the Indians of the Northwest, are eaten by the Tuski of Alaska and are gathered in autumn by the western Eskimo and frozen, for winter food.[Sturtevant EPW]

Empetrum nigrum L. ssp. hermaphroditum (Lange) Bocher (blackberry, crowberry, deenich' uh). Berries are eaten fresh or processed into jam. They are considered good thirst quenchers when traveling in the woods. Formerly, leaves were boiled in water and made into a poultice to soothe pain. They were also boiled into a tea used for chest congestion and sour stomach. (No. 783).[EFY Holloway]

These berries are sometimes picked and eaten, but they are not preserved. According to Napaskiak informants, the people living along the adjacent Bering Sea coast brewed tea from this plant, using the entire plant. Crowberries have a limited use along the northern coast of Alaska (Anderson, 1939, p. 715) , and Heller (1953 , p. 79) notes that Eskimos mix them with other berries.[Oswalt Eskimo]

Bella Coola: Green leaves, with or without berries, boiled, and the decoction taken internally as a purgative.[Smith(1927)]

Propagation
"Seed - best sown as soon as it is ripe in a cold frame. The seed can be very slow to germinate, stored seed requires 5 months warm then 3 months cold stratification at 5^oc[200]. When they are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and grow them on in the greenhouse for at least their first winter. Plant them out into their permanent positions in late spring or early summer, after the last expected frosts. Cuttings of half-ripe wood, 3cm with a heel, July/August in a frame. Takes 3 weeks. Good percentage[78, 200]. Cuttings of mature wood of the current year's growth, 3cm with a heel, October in a frame. Requires shade. Good percentage[78, 200]."[PFAF]

Cultivation

"A calcifuge plant, it is easily grown in a lime-free soil[200]. Prefers a moist sandy peaty soil and some shade[1, 3]. The two names var. 'Rubrum' and var. 'Purpureum' are of doubtful application to this species and may refer to E. eamesii[200]. Plants are usually dioecious though hermaphrodite forms are known. Male and female plants will normally need to be grown if fruit and seed are required."[PFAF]

Synonyms

• Empetrum atropurpureum (Fernald & Wiegand) ^[E-Flora]
• Empetrum hermaphroditum Lange ex Hagerup, Dansk Bot. Ark. 5, 2: 1. 1927.^[FCAA]
  • var. hermaphroditum (Lange ex Hagerup) T.J. Sørensen, Meddel. Grønland 101(3): 95. 1933. ^[FCAA]
  • subsp. hermaphroditum (Lange ex Hagerup) Böcher, Meddel. Grønland 147(9): 81. 1952. ^[FCAA]
• Empetrum nigrum var. atropurpureum (Fernald & Wiegand) B. Boivin ^[E-Flora]
• Empetrum nigrum var. purpureum (Raf.) A. DC. ^[E-Flora]
• Empetrum rubrum var. atropurpureum (Fernald & Wiegand) R. Good ^[E-Flora]

References

• [E-flora] Empetrum nigrum, [Accessed: 6/12/2014 2:58:13 PM ]
  • [IFBC-E-flora] Illustrated Flora of B.C., Douglas, G.W., G.B. Straley, D.V. Meidinger, and J. Pojar, Volume 1-8, .C. Ministry. Environment, Lands and Parks and B.C. Ministry of Forests. Victoria, 1998-2002. Publication
  • [USDA-E-flora] U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service Plant Database. http://plants.usda.gov .
• [FCAA] Aiken, S.G., Dallwitz, M.J., Consaul, L.L., McJannet, C.L., Boles, R.L., Argus, G.W., Gillett, J.M., Scott, P.J., Elven, R., LeBlanc, M.C., Gillespie, L.J., Brysting, A.K., Solstad, H., and Harris, J.G. 2007. Flora of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval. NRC Research Press, National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa. http://nature.ca/aaflora/data, accessed on Aug 19, 2013
• [FEIS] Various sources are numbered but not specifically mentioned here. Matthews, Robin F. 1992. Empetrum nigrum. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory (Producer). Available: http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/ [2013, August 20].
• [Kari] Kari, Priscilla Russe 1985 Upper Tanana Ethnobotany. Anchorage. Alaska Historical Commission (p. 12)
• [PFAF] http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Empetrum+nigrum Accessed March 21, 2015
• TAV.33,1973 - The Alkaloids, Volume 3, 1973 - A Review of Chemical Literature
• [UMD-Eth, Accessed Aug 2013]
  • [X] Smith, Harlan I. 1929 Materia Medica of the Bella Coola and Neighboring Tribes of British Columbia. National Museum of Canada Bulletin 56:47-68 (p. 60)
  • [XI] Leighton, Anna L. 1985 Wild Plant Use by the Woods Cree (Nihithawak) of East-Central Saskatchewan. Ottawa. National Museums of Canada. Mercury
• [Wildflower.org] Empetrum nigrum - Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower center, The Unversity of Texas at Austin, Accessed Aug 20, 2013Series (p. 38)