This intensely colored fruit should be easy to see on the forest floor but is quite hard to find as it is mostly hidden under the leaves of the plant. Furthermore each plant holds very few fruits, and some just one drupe as seen here. A fully formed fruit would hold many drupes and resemble a cloudberry, but this species has way of producing very irregular number of drupes and for me this one was like a ruby in the forest. Just one precious fruit carrying the true gem inside it.
With blueberries and lingonberries/cowberries each plant carries so many fruits you can see them from afar, but this species has a different way of life and I had to look very carefully to find this amazing specimen.
When you sit by these fruits and wait for the rays of sunlight to filter through to the fruit, they almost glow and become semi-transparent, and you can see the shape of the seeds inside.
Elevation: 9 meters
Sandbukta, Svartskog, Akershus, Norway
Last updated on 15 December 2020
