| Empetrum nigrum L. | |||
| |||
| Family | Empetraceae — APG family: Ericaceae | ||
| Synonyms | Empetrum eamesii Fern. & Wieg., Empetrum arcticum Vassiljev, Empetrum atropurpureum Fern. & Wieg., Empetrum subholarcticum Vassiljev, Empetrum androgynum Vassiljev, Empetrum kardakovii Vassiljev | ||
| Description | Procumbent, with creeping branches; young branches minutely glandular-pubes- cent; leaves linear to narrowly elliptical, glandular-margined, divergent, soon re- flexed; flowers inconspicuous, solitary in upper axils; pistillate and staminate flowers on different plants, traces of opposite sex sometimes occur; fruit black, very rarely purplish or white, with watery juice and several hard seeds. | ||
| Ecology | Heaths, bogs. Described from Europe. | ||
| Taxonomy notes | Circumpolar map indicates range of uni- sexual E. nigrum, broken line that of subsp. japénicum (Good) Hult. (E. nigrum f. japonicum Good). | ||
| Uses | The berries are tasteless, but are eaten, especially mixed with those of Vaccinium uliginosum, in pies or as jelly. |
This is a digital representation of Eric Hultén’s ‘Flora of Alaska and Neighboring Territories: A Manual of the Vascular Plants’, which was published by Stanford University Press in 1968. The book was digitized by C. Webb (at UAMN) as part of the Flora of Alaska project, with funding by the US NSF (Grant 1759964 to Ickert-Bond & Webb), and with permission of Stanford University Press. Data and images © 1968 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. Univ. Usage licence: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0. NB: You may find OCR errors; please refer to the hard-copy if in doubt.