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Species Review

Empetrum nigrum, black crowberry

Written
March, 1992
Contributors
Robin F. Matthews - 1st Author

Matthews, Robin F. 1992. Empetrum nigrum, black crowberry. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory (Producer). Available: https://research.fs.usda.gov/feis/species-reviews/empnig

DOI
10.2737/feis-species-review-empnig

AbbreviationCommon NameScientific NameClassificationStatus
Plants
EMPNIGblack crowberryEmpetrum nigrumLife Form: Plants/Shrub
Kingdom: Plantae
Class: Dicot
Order: Ericales
Family: Empetraceae
Genus: Empetrum		Fed. Protected: No
Nativity: Native
Invasiveness: Noninvasive

Photo of black crowberry with fruit.
Photo Credit: Photo by Kallum McDonald, iNaturalist.org, no rights reserved.
Black crowberry.

Taxonomy

The currently accepted scientific name of black crowberry is Empetrum nigrum L. [2,13,18].

Synonyms

  • Empetrum hermaphroditum (Lange) Hagerup
  • Empetrum nigrum L. subsp. Nigrum
  • Empetrum nigrum L. subsp. hermaphroditum (Lange ex Hagerup) Böcher [19]

Other Common Names

crowberry, curlewberry

General Distribution

Black crowberry is distributed throughout Alaska, across the Yukon Territory and Canada to Labrador, Newfoundland, and Greenland. It occurs south through New England and the Great Lakes states, as well as along the Pacific Coast to northern California. Black crowberry also has a wide distribution throughout Europe [38,42,47].

States and Provinces

  • United States: AK CA ME MA MI MN NH NY OR VT WA WI
  • Canada: AB BC LB MB NB NF NT NS ON PQ SK YT

Site Characteristics

Black crowberry is found from sea level to alpine zones. It occurs in a wide variety of habitats including sphagnum bogs or muskegs, open tundra, rockfields, conifer forests, coastal bluffs, and exposed sea cliffs [3,38,47,49]. Black crowberry is tolerant of a wide range of soil moisture conditions, but is intolerant of prolonged water logging, and on wet sites it is found in better drained areas [5]. Black crowberry is adapted to harsh climates and it often inhabits sites exposed to wind, fog, and salt aerosals. Site characteristics influence black crowberry morphology: on sites with high wind exposure, black crowberry is branched and prostrate; on wet sites it is sparsely branched and has long annual growth increments; on dry sites it has branching shoots and is bushy [5].

Black crowberry is found in sandy to rocky soils, glacial till, and alluvial deposits [8,42]. Soil pH ranges from 2.5 to 7.7 [5]. Black crowberry establishes itself on mineral soils and stagnant surfaces that are nutrient enriched [7] but is also classified as an indicator of nitrogen-poor soils [22].

Plant Communities

Black crowberry is a dominant or codominant in a variety of different habitats. It may occur as an understory dominant in open conifer woodlands with black spruce (Picea mariana), white spruce (P. glauca), or shore pine (Pinus contorta var. contorta). Black crowberry can dominate shrub-types with dwarf birch (Betula nana), willow (Salix spp.), and ericaceous shrubs in bogs or muskegs and on open, moist tundra [1,8,33,37,46].

Other commonly associated species include: paper birch (Betula papyrifera), quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), Alaska cedar (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis), bog birch (Betula glandulosa), Labrador tea (Ledum glandulosum and L. groenlandicum), various Vaccinium and Carex species, feathermosses (Hylocomium spp. and Pleurozium spp.), lichens (Cladonia spp. and Cladina spp.), and sphagnum mosses.

Published classification schemes listing black crowberry as a major component of plant associations (pas), community types (cts), or vegetation types (vts) are as follows:

AreaClassificationAuthority
AKGen. veg. plant associationsViereck & Dyrness 1980
Kenai Peninsula, AKVegetation typesReynolds 1990
Canadian Rocky Mtns.old growth community typesAchuff 1989
NFPeatland plant associationsPollett 1972
Southwest YTCommunity typesDouglas 1974

Botanical Description

Photo of black crowberry with fruit.
Photo Credit
Photo by Kallum McDonald, iNaturalist.org, no rights reserved.

Black crowberry.

Black crowberry is a low, creeping evergreen shrub that generally reaches 6 inches (15 cm) in height and often forms dense mats. The leaves are linear to elliptic, and the lower surface is grooved to reduce evapotranspiration in harsh climates. Black crowberry has inconspicuous purple flowers [2,13,47,49].

Young black crowberry plants have a strong primary root, but as the plants age, a shallow root system with many lateral roots develops [5].

Raunkiaer Life Form (Raunkiaer 1934)

  • Chamaephyte

Seasonal Development

Flowering occurs in spring in areas of early snowmelt and continues through July. Fruits mature from August to late fall and persist through the winter under snow cover [18,32,42,47].

Regeneration Processes

Sexual reproduction: Black crowberry is classified as polygamous, dioecious, or monoecious. The dark-blue to black fruit is a drupe containing six to nine nutlets [2,13,18]. Seeds are dispersed by birds and animals [20]. Some seeds may become established under the parent, but seedling mortality is generally high [5]. Black crowberry seeds have been found buried beneath the soil, although only a small percent of the seeds are actually viable [20,32]. Seeds were found in 71 percent of soil cores taken from plots near Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories [20].

Vegetative reproduction: Sprouting from underground or basal portions is the main form of reproduction of black crowberry [5,20,39]. In addition, adventitious roots form where procumbent branches come in contact with the ground [5].

Successional Status

Black crowberry is a pioneer on sandy blowouts, dry, lichen-covered depressions on eskers [3], and in avalanche areas [30]. However, it is more often associated with late seral or climax communities, particularly white or black spruce types [8,24,45]. Black crowberry is common and abundant in old forests that have had no recent fires [14].

Immediate Fire Effects

Fire top-kills black crowberry; moderate or severe fires also readily kill underground parts close to the soil surface [14,35].

Postfire Regeneration Strategy (Stickney 1989)

  • Survivor species; on-site surviving root crown or caudex
  • Off-site colonizer; seed carried by animals or water; postfire years 1 and 2

Fire Adaptations

Black crowberry generally occurs in communities with long fire intervals or in communities that lack the dry fuel to sustain a fire [7,24,45]. Low growth form and small stems make black crowberry liable to top-kill by fire. Belowground parts are also very susceptible to fire damage because most of them are located near the soil surface [14,35]. Postfire seedlings may arise from seed banks but are not a regular occurrence [24]. Black crowberry can regenerate vegetatively following fire [5,20,39], but this process is slow. Normal or prefire densities may not be reached for 20 to 30 years [24].

Plant Response to Fire

Black crowberry is slow to recover following fire [5,48,50]. In Labrador, black crowberry decreased significantly in frequency and abundance following fire. Preburn frequency was 61 percent, while postburn frequency was 0 percent after 5 years [14]. It also showed little or no recovery in 2- or 7 year-old burns in the Seward Peninsula, Alaska [35]. In the Wickersham Dome Fire near Fairbanks, Alaska, black crowberry in black spruce stands responded differently in lightly and heavily burned areas. In the lightly burned sites, percent cover was 1.4, 1.1, 0.9, and 1.25 in postfire years 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. However, in the heavily burned sites, black crowberry cover was 0 percent in the 4 years immediately following the fire [46].

For information on prescribed fire and postfire responses of many plant species, including black crowberry, see this Research Project Summary:

  • Forest floor and plant responses to experimental fires in an Alaskan black spruce/feather moss community

Fire Regimes

For fire regime information, search FEIS for this species by entering the species name on the Advanced Search page and selecting “Fire Regime” as the publication type.

Fire Management Considerations

No entry.

Federal Status

No special status.

Other Status

No entry.

Importance to Wildlife and Livestock

Black crowberry fruits are utilized as fall and winter forage by over 40 species of songbirds, waterfowl, and upland game birds [27,28,44,47]. The berries are especially important to grouse and ptarmigan [10,27,47].

Black crowberry seeds are a major component of the red-backed vole's fall diet [51].

Big game animals that browse black crowberry foliage include reindeer, caribou, and bear [4,17,41]. Bear also eat the berries, so black crowberry utilization by bear increases in summer as fruits become ripe. Occurrence of black crowberry fruits in bear scat samples increased from 5.9 percent in early spring to 12.9 percent by late summer [26].

Palatability and Nutritional Value

Black crowberry in barren-ground caribou forage areas consists of 6.27 percent protein and releases energy in the amount of 5.51 kilocalories per gram [31]

Digestibility of black crowberry has been classified as low [40].

Cover Value

Dense mats of black crowberry probably provide cover for small rodents and mammals.

Value for Rehabilitation or Restoration of Disturbed Sites

Black crowberry has been broadly successful at naturally colonizing borrow pits in the tundra regions of northwestern Canada, and may be of use in managed reclamation projects [21]. Black crowberry has followed cottongrass (Eriophorum spissum) in the colonization of mined peatlands, but only after decades have elapsed [12]. Dense black crowberry mats catch blowing soils in areas of high wind exposure, and its interlocking roots may help stabilize the steep, rocky slopes it often inhabits.

Black crowberry could not be established by seed on test plots in simulated pipeline trenches near Fort Norman, Northwest Territories [29].

Other Uses

Black crowberry fruits are used, but usually mixed with other berries, in pies or jellies. In the winter, Native Americans gather the persistent berries buried beneath the snow [19,47].

Other Management Considerations

Black crowberry can be grown from stem cuttings and has been used as ground cover in rough, low areas in interior Alaska [47].

Black crowberry showed no signs of recovery 2 years after clearcutting and subsequent burning near Fairbanks, Alaska [9]. Three years after defoliation, black crowberry in barren-ground caribou forage areas had not recovered [31].

Table A1— Forest and range ecosystems, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) physiographic regions, Kuchler plant associations, Society for American Foresters (SAF) forest cover types, and Society for Rangeland Management (SRM) rangeland cover types in which this species occurs.

Forest and Range Ecosystems (Garrison et al. 1977)

  • FRES10 White - red - jack pine
  • FRES11 Spruce – fir
  • FRES19 Aspen – birch
  • FRES20 Douglas-fir
  • FRES23 Fir – spruce
  • FRES24 Hemlock - Sitka spruce
  • FRES26 Lodgepole pine
  • FRES44 Alpine

BLM Physiographic Regions (Bernard and Brown 1977)

  • 1 Northern Pacific Border
  • 2 Cascade Mountains

Kuchler Plant Associations (Kuchler 1964)

  • K001 Spruce - cedar - hemlock forest
  • K002 Cedar - hemlock - Douglas-fir forest
  • K003 Silver fir - Douglas-fir forest
  • K004 Fir - hemlock forest
  • K008 Lodgepole pine - subalpine forest
  • K012 Douglas-fir forest
  • K015 Western spruce - fir forest
  • K052 Alpine meadows and barren
  • K093 Great Lakes spruce - fir forest
  • K094 Conifer bog
  • K095 Great Lakes pine forest
  • K096 Northeastern spruce - fir forest
  • K108 Northern hardwoods - spruce forest

SAF Cover Types (Eyre 1980)

  • 1 Jack pine
  • 5 Balsam fir
  • 12 Black spruce
  • 13 Black spruce – tamarack
  • 16 Aspen
  • 18 Paper birch
  • 38 Tamarack
  • 107 White spruce
  • 201 White spruce
  • 202 White spruce - paper birch
  • 204 Black spruce
  • 205 Mountain hemlock
  • 206 Engelmann spruce - subalpine fir
  • 218 Lodgepole pine
  • 223 Sitka spruce
  • 224 Western hemlock
  • 225 Western hemlock - Sitka spruce
  • 226 Coastal true fir – hemlock
  • 227 Western redcedar - western hemlock
  • 228 Western redcedar
  • 229 Pacific Douglas-fir
  • 230 Douglas-fir - western hemlock
  • 253 Black spruce - white spruce
  • 254 Black spruce - paper birch

SRM Rangeland Cover Types (Shiflet 1994)

  • No entry

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