Cranberry
Cranberry Trivia by SmartHerbals:
Sometime bees steal nectar from cranberry flowers by sneaking in next to the stamen filament, instead of probing from the top (where they pick up pollen).
The rusty patched bumble bees and leafcutter bees were the best at delivering pollen to cranberry flowers, although the flowers don't really need 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 much.
Cranberry plants produce extra flowers as a backup plan, the upper flowers will stop fruit production even if pollinated, unless something happens to the lower flowers.
Cranberries were only domesticated around 200 years ago, when a handful of wild populations were selected to plant commercially
There are three species that produce cranberries. 𝘝𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘶𝘮 𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘯 is the cultivated variety known as the American (or large) cranberry, 𝘝. 𝘰𝘹𝘺𝘤𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘴 is the common cranberry, found across the northern hemisphere, and 𝘝. 𝘮𝘪𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘱𝘶𝘮 is the small cranberry.
The name comes from the shape of the flowers, which early settlers in New England thought looked like a crane (the bird). In Europe the fruit as called a fenberry, after the type of soil it grows in.
Cranberries can be harvested wet (for processed food) or dry (for fresh fruits). In wet harvesting, the cranberry bogs are flooded, and the water is stirred up to encourage the plants to loosen the berries, which float on the water.
Sources:
Cane, and Schiffhauer. American Journal of Botany 90.10 (2003): 1425-1432.
Brown, and McNeil. American Journal of Botany 93.6 (2006): 910-916.
Diaz-Garcia, et al. Frontiers in Plant Science 11 (2020): 607770.
Online Etymology Dictionary, Douglas Harper. 2017. Retrieved 7 December 2017.
Ocean Spray Website
Image: Unsplash – Caroline McFarland
