Photos of cowberry / lingonberry plants – as flowers and berries

Photo of cowberry
Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera on August 27th, 2007. Click picture for larger view.

In this photo you can see ripe cowberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), also known as lingonberries (and foxberry, mountain cranberry, lowbush cranberry, and partridgeberry). I have been collecting several kilograms of these lovely berries the last few days. I use cowberries mainly as jam or compote accompanying meat dishes, especially game meats. They have a tart taste so they are perfect with meat.

In old times, when people didn’t have a freezer, cowberry was used as a natural preservative because of their high content of benzoic acid. It was mixed with other berries, like cloudberry, to make the berries edible throughout the winter.
Cowberry was (and is) an important source for vitamin C, A and some B vitamins.

Our family is pretty much self sufficient with cowberries, but I believe you can buy cowberries at IKEA in rest of the world?

Here is a close up picture of cowberry flowers.

Photo of cowberry flowers
Taken with Olympus E500 digital camera on June 14th, 2007. Click picture for larger view.

Information about the pictures:
Camera: Olympus E-500 digital SLR camera
Focal Length: 35 mm
Lens: Olympus Zuiko Digital 35mm F3.5 Macro
Location: Laupstad (Andørja), Troms in northern Norway

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13 thoughts on “Photos of cowberry / lingonberry plants – as flowers and berries”

  1. Takk for kommentar på bloggen min på bildet av Engevik havn. Ja, sildesessongen har startet og det var det Havn var brukt til for et par generasjoner siden. Silden kom inn dit og det var nok arbeidsplassen til de fleste rundt Havn og Sævareid.
    Du tar mange fine bilder! Oppdaget siden din via Rick og har vært og tittet noen ganger. Jeg skal bli flinkere til å legge igjen en kommentar når jeg har vært på besøk!

  2. In Mauritius, in upper and cold regions grows a fruit that looks just like the red ones you’ve photographed. we call it “goyave de chine”. My grandpa used to make jams and compotes out of these fruits. This reminded me of nice souvenirs! 😉

  3. I would like to where can I get these plants. I am looking to buy them in NE but can;t find anywhere.

  4. I was wondering if these plants are hard to grow? I tasted lingonberry juice at IKEA and have gotten hooked on the stuff, it’s delicious! I got a big bottle of saft lingon a couple of days ago but it’s nearly done…. The climate in N. Ireland is quite cold too, so would this help? Any advice would be great (:

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