Vaccinium myrtillus |
Vaccinium oxycoccos |
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bilberry, dwarf bilberry, dwarf blueberry, low bilberry, low blueberry, myrtle blueberry, whortleberry |
bog cranberry, canneberge commune, small cranberry, swamp cranberry, wild cranberry |
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Habit | Plants forming open colonies, 0.5–12 dm, rhizomatous; twigs green, conspicuously 3-angled, glabrous or minutely puberulent along grooves. | Plants trailing, shoots 0.1–0.3(–0.5) dm. |
Leaf | blades bright green, broadly elliptic or ovate, 19–27 × 7–11 mm, margins sharply serrate, surfaces laxly glandular abaxially. |
blades glaucous abaxially, green adaxially, ovate, sometimes elliptic, 3–10 × 1–5 mm, coriaceous, margins entire, strongly revolute. |
Inflorescences | in axils of leaflike bracts at base of previous year’s or older shoots, (leafy portion often failing to elongate). |
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Pedicels | nodding, slender, 2–3 cm, bracteolate or not; bracteoles 1–5, reddish, scalelike, to 1 mm wide. |
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Flowers | calyx green, lobes ± recurved (or absent and margins of tube sinuate), deltate, 0.4–0.6 mm, glabrous; corolla pink, cream, or greenish white, globose, 3–5 × 5–7 mm, thin, glaucous; filaments glabrous. |
calyx lobes relatively small; corolla strongly reflexed at anthesis, white to deep pink; filaments hairy; anther tubules 2–2.5 mm. |
Berries | purple-black or bluish black, rarely reddish or red, 7–9 mm diam. |
deep red, red-spotted at first, 6–12 mm diam., smooth. |
Seeds | ca. 1 mm. |
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2n | = 24, 48. |
= 24, 48, 72. |
Vaccinium myrtillus |
Vaccinium oxycoccos |
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Phenology | Flowering late spring–summer. | Flowering early summer. |
Habitat | Heaths, montane heaths, boggy barrens, degraded meadows, open coniferous forests, oak parklands, disturbed or open birch woods, hummocky seepage slopes, moraines | Half buried in Sphagnum hummocks in bogs, fens, muskeg, arctic-alpine tundra |
Elevation | 0-2600 m (0-8500 ft) | 0-1500 m (0-4900 ft) |
Distribution |
AZ; CO; ID; MT; NM; NV; OR; UT; WA; AB; BC; Greenland; Europe; e Asia (Japan)
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AK; CA; CT; ID; IL; IN; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; NH; NJ; NY; OH; OR; PA; RI; VT; WA; WI; WV; AB; BC; MB; NB; NL; NS; NT; NU; ON; PE; QC; SK; YT; SPM; Greenland; n Europe; n Asia
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Discussion | Vaccinium myrtillus fruits are popular in Europe and are known to possess antioxidants and other compounds beneficial to vascular health. Berries in Europe are extensively harvested from wild stands. In North America, the fruits were used by the Kootenai, Carrier, Shuswap, and other native tribes. The small plant and fruit sizes create challenges for commercialization in North America. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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.) |
Source | FNA vol. 8, p. 523. | FNA vol. 8, p. 519. |
Parent taxa | Ericaceae > subfam. Vaccinioideae > Vaccinium > sect. Myrtillus | Ericaceae > subfam. Vaccinioideae > Vaccinium > sect. Oxycoccus |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | V. myrtillus subsp. oreophilum, V. myrtillus var. oreophilum, V. oreophilum | Oxycoccus hagerupii, Oxycoccus intermedius, Oxycoccus microcarpus, Oxycoccus ovalifolius, Oxycoccus oxycoccos, Oxycoccus palustris, Oxycoccus palustris var. intermedius, Oxycoccus palustris subsp. microphyllus, Oxycoccus palustris var. ovalifolius, Oxycoccus quadripetalus, Oxycoccus quadripetalus var. microphyllus, V. microcarpum, V. oxycoccos var. intermedium, V. oxycoccos subsp. microphyllum, V. oxycoccos var. microphyllum, V. oxycoccos var. ovalifolium |
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 1: 349. (1753) | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 1: 351. 1753 , |
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