Latvian Lingonberry

Vaccinium vitis-idaea  Origin: Latvia Improvement status: Unknown Seeds per packet: ~50 BOTANICAL SAMPLE - NOT GERMINATION TESTED Life cycle: Perennial Also called bearberry, cowberry, beaverberry, cougarberry, mountain cranberry, or partridgeberry, this pretty creeping evergreen groundcovering sub-shrub in the heather family makes tasty round red cranberry-like fruit every fall. In fact, the flavor is nearly indistinguishable from cranberries, though lingonberries will get sweeter than cranberries if left on the plant into winter. The plant is generally associated most with northern Europe in the popular imagination — especially Scandinavia ("lingon" is the Swedish name for the species), where they're a common side-dish served with meatballs, poultry, reindeer and other game, and blood pudding (see photo) — but it's actually native to boreal forests from Europe through Asia and across northern North America as well. Indigenous peoples in Alaska and Canada have a long history of utiliz