Vaccinium uliginosum
Vaccinium oxycoccos
airelle des marécages, alpine blueberry, blueberry, bog bilberry, bog blueberry
bog cranberry, canneberge commune, small cranberry, swamp cranberry, wild cranberry
blades usually glaucous abaxially, green to glaucous adaxially, orbiculate, ovate, or obovate to narrowly elliptic, 8–14 × 3–7 mm, membranous, margins entire, surfaces often faintly puberulent, sometimes hairy throughout.
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.
sepals usually distinct;
corolla white to pink, 3–4(–5) mm, lobes 0.3–0.4 mm;
filaments glabrous.
calyx lobes relatively small;
corolla strongly reflexed at anthesis, white to deep pink;
filaments hairy;
anther tubules 2–2.5 mm.
blue, 6–8 mm diam., glaucous.
deep red, red-spotted at first, 6–12 mm diam., smooth.
= 24, 48, 72.
= 24, 48, 72.
Vaccinium uliginosum
Vaccinium oxycoccos
Vaccinium uliginosum is transcontinental in North America between 60° and 70° north latitude; farther north it is rare, especially in the Queen Elizabeth Islands. To the southwest, it is found as far as northern California and northwestern Utah. The summits of the White Mountains of New Hampshire form its southernmost limit in eastern North America. This wide-ranging plant shows considerable variation, notably in floral morphology. Subspecies have been recognized (cf. S. B. Young 1970); a review of morphological variation by H. J. Warr (1981) did not support the distinctiveness of infraspecific taxa.
(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.)
- Local floras:
BC, 
OR, 
WA - Local Web sites:
CalFlora, CalPhotos, 
Flora NW, 
Go Botany, 
IL Wildflowers, 
MD Biodiversity, 
MI Flora, 
MN Wildflowers, 
PNW Herbaria, Turner Photog. 
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist (observations)
USDA Plants Database- LBJ Wildflower Center
- SEINet
- Plants of the World Online
- Encyclopedia of Life
- Wikipedia
- Google Image Search
