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Gaylussacia brachycera (Michx.) A. Gray  
Family: Ericaceae
Box Huckleberry
[Vaccinium brachycerum Michx.]
Gaylussacia brachycera image
  • FNA
  • Gleason & Cronquist
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Bruce A. Sorrie, Alan S. Weakley, Gordon C. Tucker in Flora of North America (vol. 8)
Plants 2-4 dm, forming small to extensive colonies; branches spreading or procumbent; twigs of current season pale green to grayish brown, (strongly angled), puberulent. Leaves persistent; petiole 0.5-3 mm; blade pale green abaxially, shiny dark green adaxially, ovate, 1-2.5 × 0.5-1.3 cm, coriaceous, base rounded, margins crenate or serrulate, (revolute), apex obtuse, without resinous dots, surfaces glabrous adaxially, glabrous or puberulent along midvein and near blade base. Inflorescences spreading, 2-5-flowered, sometimes flowers solitary, ebracteate, 0.5-1 cm, puberulent. Pedicels 0.5-3 mm, glabrous; bracteoles (early deciduous), 1-3, (ovate), 2-4 mm, (margins ciliate). Flowers: sepals 4-5, 0.3-0.5 mm, glabrous; petals 4-5, corolla white to pink, campanulate-urceolate, 4 mm, lobes broadly deltate to rounded, 0.5-1.5 mm; filaments 1-1.5 mm, glabrous; anthers included, 1-1.5 mm, thecae not divergent distally; ovary glabrous. Drupes juicy, sweet, light blue, 6-8 mm diam., glabrous. Seeds 1-1.5 mm. Flowering late spring-early summer. Upland or montane woods; (10-)200-1000 m; Del., Ky., Md., N.C., Pa., Tenn., Va., W.Va. Gaylussacia brachycera is a dwarf evergreen shrub that forms large, solid-mat, self-sterile colonies, each one appearing to consist of a single clone that may extend over more than one hectare. One colony in Perry County, Pennsylvania, is about 1.5 kilometers wide; it appears to be a single clone that is over 12,000 years old and has been labeled as the oldest living thing in the world.

Vascular plants of NE US and adjacent Canada
Plants not glandular; stems 2-4 dm, bearing a conspicuous ridge below the base of each lf; colonial by long, woody rhizomes; lvs leathery, evergreen, elliptic, 12-22 mm, finely serrulate, glabrous; racemes few-fld, subsessile, shorter than the subtending lvs; cor 5 mm; fr dark blue, edible. Wooded hillsides, chiefly in the mts.; Md. and Del. to Pa., Ky., and e. Tenn.; very local except in W.Va. May, June. (Buxella b.)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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