Happy Thanksgiving: 91 years ago

It wasn't always can shaped.

Cranberries are a holiday staple. Fresh or canned, the choice is yours. But where do they come from? 
 
The cranberry on your table is most likely the American cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon), a short trailing evergreen shrub native. The species is native to northeastern/northcentral North America. They are grown commercially in human-made ponds (often called cranberry bogs) that are well irrigated.  They are harvested in two ways.   If the fruit is used for juices, sauces, or  dried, the ponds are flooded in the fall for harvesting (the fruit floats).  For use  as fresh cranberries,  the fruit is harvest dry.
 
Check out this cool specimen of cranberry, collected by Millie Turner in 1928 between Saxonburg and Freeport, Pennsylvania near Cypher farm.  Cypher farm still exists today,  operated by the same family  for over 100 years.
 
What is especially neat about this specimen is a note attached that reads “...80 ten quart  pails of these berries were picked at one time from  this bog.”
 

Now that’s a lot of cranberry sauce!  
 
Find this specimen and more cranberries here: 
​ http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/list.php?db=328&taxa=Vaccinium+macrocarpon&usethes=1&taxontype=2

Look carefully in the fall diorama of a bog in northwestern Pennsylvania in the Hall of Botany to see cranberries as they’d appear in the wild.