Early low-bush blueberry, bleuet feuilles ,troites

Vacciniumangustifolium 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. 2n = 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.