crowberry
(ˈkrəʊbɛrɪ)
[prob. a translation of Ger. krähenbeere; the northern synonym crakeberry (see crake) may be of Norse origin: cf. Da. kragebær.]
1. The fruit of a small evergreen heath-like shrub (Empetrum nigrum), found on heaths in northern Europe and America; the berry is black and of insipid taste. Also the plant itself.
| 1597 Gerarde Herbal App. to Table, Crow berries, Erica baccifera. 1769 J. Wallis Nat. Hist. Northumb. I. viii. 145 Berry-bearing Heath, Crow-berry, or Crake-berry. 1776 Withering Brit. Plants (1796) II. 177 Black-berried Heath, Black Crow-berries, Crake-berries..in bogs and moorish grounds. 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. i. i, Apt to run goose-hunting into regions of bilberries and crowberries, and be swallowed up at last in remote peat-bogs. 1837 Macdougall tr. Graah's E. Coast Greenl. 32 The walls..being overgrown with dwarf-willow, crowberry, and whortleberry bushes. |
2. a. Extended to plants of the allied genus Corema and their fruit. b. Erroneously applied in some parts of Britain to the bilberry, Vaccinium Myrtillus, and the cowberry, V. Vitis-Idæa.
| 1866 Treas. Bot. 351 Broom Crowberry, an American name for Corema. 1884 Miller Plant-n., Broom Crowberry, Corema (Empetrum) Conradii. Portugal Crow-berry, Corema lusitanicum. |