Earth Almanac: November/December 2006

Glutton’s Delight

In 1722, when Thomas More sent American cranberries to a botanist friend in London, he included a note in which he described the species as “a drunken rogue that will neither grow or keep without swimming in water; he makes the best tarts in the world and therefore highly valued among gluttons.” At the first Thanksgiving or shortly thereafter, the Indians provided this fruit to the Pilgrims, who later called it “craneberry” because the pink blossom reminded them of a crane’s head. The American cranberry also grows wild in wetlands from Newfoundland and the Maritime provinces to Ontario, and from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan to New Jersey, Long Island, and Massachusetts. Wisconsin produces about half the country’s commercial crop. Massachusetts produces another third, and the remainder comes from New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington. Another New World species, not cultivated, is the small cranberry. Both species moved south with the Laurentide glaciers of the late Pleistocene Epoch.

Flying Oarsmen

Not all insects slow down or die as winter approaches. Be on the lookout for water boatmen—now at the start of their breeding cycle—sculling to the surface on oarlike hind legs and launching into the air. They may fly five miles, touching down feet first in any water body, even a puddle, to feast on algae. Water boatmen, represented throughout most of temperate North America by more than 100 species, remain active even under ice, finding air pockets. In all seasons a water boatman traps an air bubble under its wings so it may breathe as it forages or rests below the surface. Don’t confuse these insects with the similar but usually larger backswimmers, which often prey on water boatmen; backswimmers can deliver painful bites, and, as their name implies, swim upside down. Because water boatmen carry their own oxygen supply with them they can thrive in warm, nutrient-rich or even chemically polluted water unsuitable for most other aquatic life—your birdbath or swimming pool, for example.