Vaccinium vitis-idaea - (image 1 of 3)
Taxonomy
Family: Ericaceae
Habitat
In bogs or on rocks.
Associates
Distribution
Boreal North America and Eurasia, south to the high peaks of New England, the shore of ME, and to MN and British Columbia.
Morphology
Low, prostrate or tailing shrub to 20 cm; leaves 8-18 mm, coriaceous, evergreen, subsessile, elliptic to obovate-oblong, rounded at both ends, entire, dotted with black glands underneath; flowers in small terminal clusters, each on a short, glandular pedicel from the axil of a bud scale; sepals glandular-ciliate; corolla campanulate, 5-7 mm, 4-lobed nearly to the middle; stamens 8, included; fruit red, edible, tart, ca. 1 cm.
Notes
Flowers June to July.
Wetland indicator: FAC
Photographed in the alpine zone on Mount Washington, NH. The flowers were still in bud and the fruit had persisted from the previous year.
References
Gleason, Henry A. and A. Cronquist. 1991. Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. Second Ed.
The New York Botanical Garden. Bronx, NY
USDA, NRCS. 2002. The PLANTS Database, Version 3.5 (http://plants.usda.gov).
National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.
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Michael Hough © 2018 |