Blue Ridge or late low-bush blueberry

Cyanococcus liparis Small; C. margarettae (Ashe) Small; C. pallidus (Aiton) Small; C. subcordatus Small; C. tallapusae Coville ex Small; C. vacillans (Kalm ex Torrey) Rydberg; Vaccinium altomontanum Ashe; V. corymbosum Linnaeus var. pallidum (Aiton) A. Gray; V. margarettae Ashe; V. vacillans Kalm ex Torrey; V. vacillans var. crinitum Fernald; V. vacillans var. missouriense Ashe; V. viride Ashe

Plants forming small to extensive, open colonies, 0.8-10 dm; twigs green, glaucous, or yellow, ± angled, hairy in lines, often glabrous. Leaves deciduous; blade pale green or glaucous abaxially, dark green adaxially, ovate to broadly elliptic, 25-38 × 13-22 mm, membranous to subcoriaceous, margins ± entire, abaxial surface usually glabrous, rarely hairy, eglandular. Flowers: calyx green, glaucous, glabrous; corolla greenish white with pink striping, cylindro-urceolate, 4-10 mm; filaments ± glabrous. Berries usually blue, glaucous, 4-8 mm diam., glabrous. Seeds 5-20, ca. 1 mm. 2n = 24, 48.

Flowering mid-late spring. Dry, open oak or oak- hickory woods, open pine woods, ledges, abandoned farmland or cut-over deciduous forests; 0-1600 m; Ont.; Ala., Ark., Conn., Del., D.C., Ga., Ill., Ind., Kans., Ky., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Miss., Mo., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Okla., Pa., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.

The flowers of Vaccinium pallidum are visited primarily by Andrena carlini Cockerell and Bombus spp. This species occasionally hybridizes with V. angustifolium, yielding V. ×dobbinii Burnham.

SELECTED REFERENCE Vander Kloet, S. P. 1978. The taxonomic status of Vaccinium pallidum, the hillside blueberries including Vaccinium vacillans. Canad. J. Bot. 56: 1559-1574.