1. G. brachýcera, Gray. (Box-Huckleberry.) Very smooth (1° high); leaves oval, finely crenate-toothed; racemes short and nearly sessile; pedicels very short; corolla cylindrical-bell-shaped.—Wooded hills, Perry Co., Penn., to Del. and Va. May.—Leaves resembling those of the Box.
[*][*] Leaves deciduous, entire, sprinkled more or less with resinous or waxy atoms.
2. G. dumòsa, Torr. & Gray. (Dwarf Huckleberry.) Somewhat hairy and glandular, low (1–5° high from a creeping base), bushy; leaves obovate-oblong, mucronate, green both sides, rather thick and shining when old; racemes elongated; bracts leaf-like, oval, persistent, as long as the pedicels; ovary bristly or glandular; corolla bell-shaped, fruit black (insipid).—Var. hirtélla has the young branchlets, racemes, and often the leaves hairy.—Sandy swamps, Newf., along the coast to Fla. and La.; the var. chiefly southward. June.
3. G. frondòsa, Torr. & Gray. (Blue Tangle. Dangleberry.) Smooth (3–6° high); branches slender and divergent; leaves obovate-oblong, blunt, pale, glaucous beneath; racemes slender, loose, bracts oblong or linear, deciduous, shorter than the slender drooping pedicels; corolla globular-bell-shaped; fruit dark blue with a white bloom (sweet and edible).—Low copses, coast of N. Eng. and mountains of Penn. to Ky., south to La. and Fla. May, June.
4. G. resinòsa, Torr. & Gray. (Black Huckleberry.) Much branched, rigid, slightly pubescent when young (1–3° high), leaves oval, oblong-ovate or oblong, thickly clothed and at first clammy, as well as the flowers, with shining resinous globules, racemes short, clustered, one-sided; pedicels about the length of the flowers; bracts and bractlets (reddish) small and deciduous, corolla ovoid-conical, or at length cylindrical with an open mouth; fruit black, without bloom (pleasant, very rarely white).—Rocky woodlands and swamps, Newf. to Minn., south to N. Ga. May, June.—The common Huckleberry of the markets.
2. VACCÍNIUM, L. Blueberry. Bilberry. Cranberry.
Corolla various in shape; the limb 4–5-cleft, revolute. Stamens 8 or 10; anthers sometimes 2-awned on the back; the cells separate and prolonged upward into a tube, opening by a hole at the apex. Berry 4–5-celled, many-seeded, or sometimes 8–10-celled by a false partition stretching from the back of each cell to the placenta.—Shrubs with solitary, clustered, or racemed flowers; the corolla white or reddish. (Ancient Latin name, of obscure derivation.)
§ 1. BATODÉNDRON. Corolla open-campanulate, 5-lobed; anthers with long tubes, and 2-awned on the back; berry (hardly edible) spuriously 10-celled; leaves deciduous but firm; flowers solitary or in leafy-bracted racemes, slender-pedicelled.
1. V. arbòreum, Marshall. (Farkle-berry.) Tall (6–25° high), smoothish; leaves obovate to oblong, entire or denticulate, mucronate, bright green, shining above, at the south evergreen; corolla white; anthers included; berries black, globose, small, many-seeded.—Sandy soil, S. Ill. to Tex., Fla., and N. C.
2. V. stamíneum, L. (Deerberry. Squaw Huckleberry.) Diffusely branched (2–3° high), somewhat pubescent; leaves ovate or oval, pale, glaucous or whitish underneath; corolla greenish-white or purplish; anthers much exserted; berries greenish or yellowish, globular or pear-shaped, large, few-seeded.—Dry woods, Maine to Minn., south to Fla. and La.