[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. Northumbld., 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, trans. 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 Crow-berry, Corema (Empetrum) Conradii. Portugal Crow-berry, Corema lusitanicum.
