''Viburnum edule'', the squashberry,
mooseberry,
[ moosomin, moosewood viburnum,] pembina, pimina, highbush cranberry, or lowbush cranberry is a species of shrub. It grows up to tall and has smooth branches.
The species is native to Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
and the northern United States. The tart berries ripen early in spring and are eaten by various animals. With the seeds removed, they are edible to humans as well, and can be made into jam
Fruit preserves are preparations of fruits whose main preserving agent is sugar and sometimes acid, often stored in glass jars and used as a condiment or spread.
There are many varieties of fruit preserves globally, distinguished by the meth ...
.
Description
It is a deciduous
In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...
, dicot
The dicotyledons, also known as dicots (or, more rarely, dicotyls), are one of the two groups into which all the flowering plants (angiosperms) were formerly divided. The name refers to one of the typical characteristics of the group: namely, ...
shrub growing tall. The bark
Bark may refer to:
Common meanings
* Bark (botany), an outer layer of a woody plant such as a tree or stick
* Bark (sound), a vocalization of some animals (which is commonly the dog)
Arts and entertainment
* ''Bark'' (Jefferson Airplane album), ...
is smooth and reddish grey in colour, the twigs glabrous
Glabrousness () is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes, or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of a plant or animal, or be due to loss because of a physical condition, ...
.
The leaves
A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...
are opposite, elliptic in shape, long, unlobed or shallowly 3-lobed, jaggedly serrated, and turning red in autumn; their underside glabrous, especially along the veins.
The flowers are arranged in a small, compact, and flat or rounded inflorescence
In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...
across consisting of several flowers. The flowers are synoecious and fertile, the petals white and fused at the base forming a tube that flares into 5 lobes at the top; the stamen
The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10
Morphology and terminology
A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filament ...
s short (≤ 1mm) and hidden within the corolla.
Ripening early in spring, the fruit is an edible red or orange berry-like drupe
In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is a type of fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pip'' (UK), ''pit'' (US), ''stone'', or ''pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed ...
, long, arranged in clusters, each fruit containing a single, flattened stone.

Taxonomy
French botanist André Michaux
André Michaux (' → ahn- mee-; sometimes Anglicisation, anglicised as Andrew Michaud; 8 March 174611 October 1802) was a French botanist and explorer. He is most noted for his study of North American flora. In addition Michaux collected specime ...
is the first recorded authority to provide a scientific name for the plant, calling it ''Viburnum opulus'' var. ''Pimina'' or ''Viburnum trilobum'' var. ''edule'' in 1803. The name ''edule'' is derived from the latin word ''ĕdūlis,'' meaning edible. The name ''Pimina'' refers to the common name for the plant used in Canada at the time. French naturalist Constantine Samuel Rafinesque
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (; 22 October 178318 September 1840) was a French early 19th-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a young man in the United States, ult ...
observed the plant later in 1808, calling it ''Viburnum edule,'' V. opulus var. of Michaux. Lacking communication and consensus between naming authorities resulted in further names being provided for the same plant, the most popular being ''Viburnum pauciflorum.'' The discrepancy was eventually resolved, and the name ''Viburnum edule'' became the commonly accepted scientific name that is still in use today.
''Viburnum edule'' was originally categorized as a member of the Caprifoliaceae
The Caprifoliaceae or honeysuckle family is a clade of dicotyledonous flowering plants consisting of about 860 species in 33 to 42 genera, with a nearly cosmopolitan distribution. Centres of diversity are found in eastern North America and easte ...
(honeysuckle) family, however phylogenetic analysis has caused the plant to be re-classified as a member of the Adoxaceae
Adoxaceae, commonly known as moschatel family, is a small family of flowering plants in the order Dipsacales, now consisting of five genera and about 150–200 species. They are characterised by opposite toothed leaves, small five- or, more rar ...
(moschatel) family.
Distribution and habitat
Squashberry is distributed across Canada, all throughout Alaska
Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...
, and in northern states of the US Specifically, it can abundantly be found in the following regions: the Yukon
Yukon () is a Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada’s we ...
, northern Quebec
Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...
, western District of Mackenzie
The District of Mackenzie was a regional administrative district of Canada's Northwest Territories. The district consisted of the portion of the Northwest Territories directly north of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan on Canada's main ...
to James Bay
James Bay (, ; ) is a large body of water located on the southern end of Hudson Bay in Canada. It borders the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, and is politically part of Nunavut. Its largest island is Akimiski Island.
Numerous waterways of the ...
, south Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the population ...
to Oregon
Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...
, Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...
, Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
, Minnesota
Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...
and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
. It will be found either as a dominant or codominant understory plant of coniferous
Conifers () are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a sin ...
forests. Oftentimes, squashberry grows abundantly in ''Picea glauca
''Picea glauca'', the white spruce, is a species of spruce native to the northern temperate and boreal forests in Canada and United States, North America.
''Picea glauca'' is native from central Alaska all through the east, across western and s ...
'' (white spruce) forests. Squashberry is also known to be an important pioneer species
Pioneer species are resilient species that are the first to colonize barren environments, or to repopulate disrupted biodiverse steady-state ecosystems as part of ecological succession. Various kinds of events can create good conditions for pi ...
that grows early after forest fires.
Squashberry can be found growing in moist soils of various forested regions. It is also found growing in dense areas of trees and shrubs, alongside wetlands and bodies of water, and at higher elevations on gravel banks. The ideal type of soil is moist alluvial
Alluvium (, ) is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluvium is also sometimes called alluvial deposit. Alluvium is ...
soil with good drainage. This plant is dispersed through animals, such as birds and mammals, that carry, eat, digest, and excrete the seeds in different areas.
Ecology
Many birds and mammals consume the wild berries, while smaller animals can use the plant as shelter.
Uses
With the seeds removed, the fruit is commonly consumed fresh and can be used to prepare foods such as jams and jellies.
Multiple parts of the plant have been used in herbal medicine
Herbal medicine (also called herbalism, phytomedicine or phytotherapy) is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. Scientific evidence for the effectiveness of many herbal treatments ...
. The berries can be used to prepare herbal cough medicines, while the roots have been used to make tea for relief of tooth pain or a sore throat. The twigs of the plant can be chewed or gargled as a tea to also treat sore throat. Lip sores have been treated by massaging the closed flower buds of ''V. edule'' on the lips. Modern research efforts have found that the fruit contains high levels of antioxidants.
Numerous Indigenous peoples
There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...
have traditionally used the plant. The Nuxalk
The Nuxalk people (Nuxalk language, Nuxalk: ''Nuxalkmc''; pronounced )'','' also referred to as the Bella Coola, Bellacoola or Bilchula, are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous First Nations in Canada, First Nation ...
people from the Bella Coola region of British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
utilize the berries for food due to the plant's rapid growth rate and high berry production. Notably, a single ''Viburnum edule'' shrub can produce a yield of up to 100 berries. Multiple First Nations
First nations are indigenous settlers or bands.
First Nations, first nations, or first peoples may also refer to:
Indigenous groups
*List of Indigenous peoples
*First Nations in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Mé ...
groups on the northwestern coast of North America have cultivated ''V. edule'' plants, planting them in wild forest gardens
A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological functio ...
. Consumption of the berries was mentioned in multiple origin myth
An origin myth is a type of myth that explains the beginnings of a natural or social aspect of the world. Creation myths are a type of origin myth narrating the formation of the universe. However, numerous cultures have stories that take place a ...
s of the Haida
Haida may refer to:
Haida people
Many uses of the word derive from the name of an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America.
* Haida people, an Indigenous ethnic group of North America (Canada)
** Council of the Haida Nati ...
people, often depicted as the food eaten at feasts or consumed by supernatural beings. Inuit
Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...
peoples near the Nain settlement in Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the populatio ...
are also known to traditionally collect the wild fruits.
References
External links
*
{{Taxonbar, from=Q210366
edule
Flora of Canada
Edible fruits
Flora of the United States