1908] Fernald,— Note on Michaux's Vaccinium myrtilloides 147 
NOTE ON MICHAUX’S VACCINIUM MYRTILLOIDES. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
THE name Vaccinium myrtilloides, first published by Michaux for 
a common blueberry of eastern Canada and the Hudson Bay regon, 
has been variously interpreted. Recently, however, it has rested as 
a synonym either of V. pennsylvanicum Lam. or its var. angusti- 
folium (Ait.) Gray, plants to which it has its closest affinity. 
Of the common blue-fruited V. pennsylvanicum there are three 
pronounced tendencies. The typical form of the species, the shrub 
of the eastern United States and of portions of Canada, has the twigs 
glabrous or at most a little pilose at tip and the leaves glabrous beneath. 
The dwarf shrub, ordinarily confined to- our alpine or colder regions, 
differs only in its reduced stature and tiny narrow leaves and is var. 
angustifolium (Ait.) Gray (V. angustifolium Ait. Hort. Kew. ii. 11). 
The third extreme is nearly if not quite as pubescent as V. canadense, 
differing from that species in its lustrous leaves with spinulose margins, 
as in the typical glabrous or glabrate V. pennsylvanicum. 
The very pubescent extreme of V. pennsylvanicum is the common 
representative of the species in many sections of eastern Canada 
and it occurs in characteristic development from Labrador to Hudson 
Bay, south to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and northern Maine, and 
locally to Massachusetts. Throughout this region, as already stated, 
the shrub is usually mistaken for V. canadense; but it has the foliage- 
characters and the earlier sweeter berries of V. pennsylvanicum, and 
is very clearly the shrub described by Michaux as V. myrtilloides. 
Michaux’s specimen, now preserved at the Muséum d’Histoire Nat- 
urelle in Paris, was over ripe and each of the two seemingly lateral 
clusters has lost all but a single berry. The branch shows clearly, 
however, that other berries had been present. The specimen was 
examined by the writer in 1903, and a tracing and note made by Dr. 
Robinson in 1900 bear out the decision that Michaux’s plant described 
"folis angusto-lanceolatis, integris, subtus juxta nervos et margine 
pubescentibus, membranaceis: .... Bluets Canadensium. Hab. a 
Canada ad sinum Hudsonis”* is the common pubescent extreme of 
V. pennsylvanicum and that it should not be longer confused with the 
Michx. ЕІ. i. 234 (1803). 
