Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Vaccinium scoparium

Vaccinium oxycoccos

grouse whortleberry, grouseberry, little-leaf huckleberry

bog cranberry, canneberge commune, small cranberry, swamp cranberry, wild cranberry
Habit Plants forming extensive colonies, 0.7–2 dm, rhizomatous; twigs green, angled, glabrous; ultimate branches compact, often forming broomlike clumps or tufts. Plants trailing, shoots 0.1–0.3(–0.5) dm.
Leaf

blades pale green abaxially, elliptic, lanceolate, or ovate-lanceolate, 7–11 × 4–6 mm, margins finely serrulate, surfaces glabrous.

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).
Pedicels

nodding, slender, 2–3 cm, bracteolate or not;

bracteoles 1–5, reddish, scalelike, to 1 mm wide.
Flowers

calyx pale green, lobes vestigial, glabrous;

corolla pink, globose to urceolate, 3–4 × 3–4 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

red, ± translucent, or bluish purple, 4–6 mm diam.

deep red, red-spotted at first, 6–12 mm diam., smooth.
Seeds

ca. 1 mm.

2n

= 24, 48, 72.

Vaccinium scoparium

Vaccinium oxycoccos
Phenology Flowering early-mid summer. Flowering early summer.
Habitat Alpine and subalpine meadows, heaths, talus slopes Half buried in Sphagnum hummocks in bogs, fens, muskeg, arctic-alpine tundra
Elevation 700-3000 m (2300-9800 ft) 0-1500 m (0-4900 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA; CO; ID; MT; NM; NV; OR; SD; UT; WA; WY; AB; BC
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
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
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

The soft, tart, bright red berries of Vaccinium scoparium, to 6 mm diameter, have fair to good flavor and were gathered and eaten raw by the Kootenay, Okanogan, Shuswap, and other Indian tribes. Harvesting was probably done using wooden or fish-bone combs. Small fruit size, low yields, and difficult harvesting make commercial prospects for V. scoparium questionable.

(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. 522. FNA vol. 8, p. 519.
Parent taxa Ericaceae > subfam. Vaccinioideae > Vaccinium > sect. Myrtillus Ericaceae > subfam. Vaccinioideae > Vaccinium > sect. Oxycoccus
Sibling taxa
V. angustifolium, V. arboreum, V. boreale, V. cespitosum, V. corymbosum, V. crassifolium, V. darrowii, V. deliciosum, V. erythrocarpum, V. hirsutum, V. macrocarpon, V. membranaceum, V. myrsinites, V. myrtilloides, V. myrtillus, V. ovalifolium, V. ovatum, V. oxycoccos, V. pallidum, V. parvifolium, V. stamineum, V. tenellum, V. uliginosum, V. vitis-idaea
V. angustifolium, V. arboreum, V. boreale, V. cespitosum, V. corymbosum, V. crassifolium, V. darrowii, V. deliciosum, V. erythrocarpum, V. hirsutum, V. macrocarpon, V. membranaceum, V. myrsinites, V. myrtilloides, V. myrtillus, V. ovalifolium, V. ovatum, V. pallidum, V. parvifolium, V. scoparium, V. stamineum, V. tenellum, V. uliginosum, V. vitis-idaea
Synonyms V. myrtillus var. microphyllum, V. erythrococcum 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 Leiberg ex Coville: Contr. U.S. Natl. Herb. 5: 103. 1897 , Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 1: 351. 1753 ,
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America, OregonFlora, UW Burke Herbarium

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers