Vaccinium myrtilloides
Vaccinium oxycoccos
bleuet fausse-myrtille, sour-top blueberry, sourtop, velvet-leaf blueberry, velvetleaf huckleberry
bog cranberry, canneberge commune, small cranberry, swamp cranberry, wild cranberry
deciduous;
blade green, elliptic, 23–35 × 8–16 mm, membranous to subcoriaceous, margins entire, surfaces ± densely hairy (sometimes mostly on veins), eglandular, sometimes glabrescent.
blades glaucous abaxially, green adaxially, ovate, sometimes elliptic, 3–10 × 1–5 mm, coriaceous, margins entire, strongly revolute.
in axils of leaflike bracts at base of previous year’s or older shoots, (leafy portion often failing to elongate).
nodding, slender, 2–3 cm, bracteolate or not;
bracteoles 1–5, reddish, scalelike, to 1 mm wide.
calyx green, glabrous, (eglandular);
corolla greenish white to pink, urceolate, 3–5 mm, (eglandular);
filaments usually hairy.
calyx lobes relatively small;
corolla strongly reflexed at anthesis, white to deep pink;
filaments hairy;
anther tubules 2–2.5 mm.
blue, glaucous, 6–8 mm diam., glabrous.
deep red, red-spotted at first, 6–12 mm diam., smooth.
10–40, ca. 1 mm.
= 24.
= 24, 48, 72.
Vaccinium myrtilloides
Vaccinium oxycoccos
Vaccinium oxycoccos is interruptedly circumboreal (absent from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, including Baffin Island) extending southward in North America to California in the Cascade Range and to West Virginia in the Appalachian Mountains.
In Europe, some chromosome races of Vaccinium oxycoccos have been given specific rank (S. P. Vander Kloet 1983) at one time or another; unfortunately, hexaploids cannot be differentiated consistently from diploids or tetraploids using morphological features such as leaf indumentum or bract size.
On most vines, especially north of 50° north latitude, the leafy portion of the fertile shoot fails to develop, giving the illusion that Vaccinium oxycoccos has an inflorescence comprising a short rachis bearing flowers on a slender pedicel.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
- Local floras:
BC, 
OR, 
WA - Local Web sites:
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Flora NW, 
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MD Biodiversity, 
MI Flora, 
MN Wildflowers, 
PNW Herbaria, Turner Photog. 
WildflowerSearch
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USDA Plants Database- LBJ Wildflower Center
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