21.
Vaccinium angustifolium
Aiton, Hort. Kew. 2: 11. 1789.
Early low-bush blueberry, bleuet feuilles ,troites
Vaccinium
angustifolium
var.
hypolasium
Fernald;
V. angustifolium
var.
laevifolium
House;
V. angustifolium
var.
nigrum
(Alph. Wood) Dole;
V. brittonii
Porter ex E. P. Bicknell;
V. lamarckii
Camp;
V. nigrum
(Alph. Wood) Britton;
V. pensylvanicum
Lamarck var.
nigrum
Alph. Wood
Plants
forming dense, extensive colonies, 1-3 dm; twigs of current season green to glaucous, ± angled, glabrous or hairy.
Leaves
deciduous; blade dark to pale green or glaucous, elliptic to narrowly elliptic, 15-41 × (5-)6-16(-20) mm, margins usually sharply, uniformly serrate (serrations sometimes minute, tipped with stipitate gland), surfaces glabrous or hairy, especially along abaxial midvein, eglandular abaxially.
Flowers:
calyx green, glaucous, glabrous; corolla usually white, cylindric to urceolate, 4-6 mm; filaments ciliate; (tubules with introrse, elongate pores).
Berries
black or blue, rarely white, 3-12 mm diam., glabrous.
Seeds
(3-)10-15(-20), ca. 1.2 mm.
2
n
= 48.
Flowering spring-early summer. Headlands, high moors, dry, sandy areas, peaty barrens, rocky outcroppings, pine barrens, oak parklands, regeneration forests, abandoned pastures and bogs; 0-1900 m; St. Pierre and Miquelon; Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que.; Conn., Del., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Pa., R.I., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.
Vaccinium angustifolium
is extensively harvested from cultivated and wild plants in New England (especially Maine) and in Quebec and the Canadian Maritime Provinces.
SELECTED REFERENCES Hall, I. V., L. E. Aalders, N. L. Nickerson, and S. P. Vander Kloet. 1979. The biological flora of Canada: 1.
Vaccinium angustifolium
Ait., sweet lowbush blueberry. Canad. Field-Naturalist 93: 415-430. Hokanson, K. and J. F. Hancock. 1993. The common lowbush blueberry,
Vaccinium angustifolium
Aiton, may be an autopolyploid. Canad. J. Pl. Sci. 73: 889-891.
