Transplanting Cranberries

Last fall while picking wild cranberries I also brought several plants home with me. My thought was to establish a bed of cranberries on our land . I had previously found a few plants in one small area. This pic is of one of the plants I moved last fall. The viney plant with the little leaves is the cranberry. There are two species of bog cranberry in our area, the large cranberry ,Vaccinium macrocarpon, and the small cranberry, Vaccinium oxycoccos. Commercially grown cranberries are the large cranberry and they are the same plant as the wild one. I didn't know how to tell the two of them apart last fall . Having learned more about them since then I now realize that most of my transplants are the small cranberry. I will try to find some of the large cranberry to transplant here this year. Needless to say all of the plants already growing here are also the small cranberry and I have found them in at least two other areas on our property since then. It always amazes me how once we have learned to recognized a plant it seems to be every where!

One of the tell tale signs that this is the small cranberry is the fact that the flower buds are at the end of the vine. They are the two little pink dots at the end of the vine. Large cranberry tends to have them along the sides of the vine.