Latin name: Vaccinium vitis-idaea
Common name: Lingonberry
Other names: Cowberry, northern mountain cranberry, fireballs, partridgeberry, red whortleberry, wolfberry, dry cranberry
How to spot it and where to find it: Happy in sunny mountain meadows, peat moors and pine woods, the lingonberry is a handsome shrub, with glossy, evergreen foliage that has smooth edges and small, scattered black dots underneath. In late summer it produces pretty pinkish-white bell-shaped flowers that precede its round, bright-red fruits.
Interesting facts: The lingonberry is circumboreal in its distribution, meaning that it occurs in the boreal zone all around the northern part of our planet. In the US it grows in Alaska, throughout Canada and in the north-eastern states, across to Greenland and Iceland. In Europe it is found in Britain and Scandinavia eastwards, but also…
