Empetrum nigrumL.

black crowberry

WFO wfo-0000667231 Accepted WFO 2026-06 6 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–f

Empetrum nigrum, photographed by Tatiana Strus
fig. a Tatiana Strus, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-03 / obs. 203412330
Empetrum nigrum, photographed by Ethan Lutterer
fig. b Ethan Lutterer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204931295
Empetrum nigrum, photographed by Ульяна Лалак
fig. c Ульяна Лалак, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200269718
Empetrum nigrum, photographed by F Quiec
fig. d F Quiec, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 191021102
Empetrum nigrum, photographed by trolleway
fig. e trolleway, CC0 1.0 / obs. 196221845
Empetrum nigrum, photographed by Andre Hosper
fig. f Andre Hosper, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 186067455

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 86 observations

Peak flowering in May, from 86 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 41 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Chamaetaxus nigra (L.) Bubani
  • Empetrum albidum V.N.Vassil.
  • Empetrum androgynum V.N.Vassil.
  • Empetrum androgynum var. caucasicum V.N.Vassil.
  • Empetrum arcticum V.N.Vassil.
  • Empetrum asiaticum (Nakai ex H.Ito) Nakai ex V.N.Vassil.
  • Empetrum caucasicum Juz.
  • Empetrum crassifolium Raf.
  • Empetrum eamesii subsp. hermaphroditum (Hagerup) D.Löve
  • Empetrum erectum Loefl.
  • Empetrum hermaphroditum Hagerup
  • Empetrum hermaphroditum var. americanum V.N.Vassil.
  • Empetrum kardakovii V.N.Vassil.
  • Empetrum kurilense V.N.Vassil.
  • Empetrum medium Carmich.
  • Empetrum nigrum f. albicarphum Honda
  • Empetrum nigrum f. ciliatum Jordal
  • Empetrum nigrum f. cylindricum Lepage
  • Empetrum nigrum f. hermaphroditum (Hagerup) Lange
  • Empetrum nigrum f. japonicum R.D.Good
  • Empetrum nigrum f. nigrum
  • Empetrum nigrum f. purpureum (Raf.) Fernald
  • Empetrum nigrum subsp. japonicum (R.D.Good) Hultén
  • Empetrum nigrum subsp. sibiricum (V.N.Vassil.) Kuvaev

and 17 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.