Red bunchberries are emerging in bunches, from bunchberry plants, which have been bunching up since spring, when white flowers and bracts emerged from the plants in bunches. This wonderful wild groundcover is a member of the dogwood family.
Bunchberry’s high summer red berries were used by Native Americans for food and treatment of coughs, colic, fever, and stomach aches. They’re full of pectin and can make a passable jelly or jam, I hear. Birds, squirrels, deer, moose, and bears prefer these fruits fresh and raw.
The plant (Cornus canadensis) also is known as crackerberry, dwarf dogwood, creeping dogwood, ground dogwood, and Canadian dwarf cornel. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 22, 2025.)