732 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



species which occur in North America one is a small tree. The fruits of many of the 

 species are edible, the most valuable being the North American Vaccinium macro- 

 carpwn, L., the Cranberry. 



Vaccinium is the classical name of one of the Old World species. 



1. Vaccinium arboreum, Marsh. Farkleberry. Sparkleberry. 



Leaves obovate, oblong-oval or occasionally orbicular, acute, or rounded and 

 apiculate at the apex, gradually or abruptly wedge-shaped at the base, obscurely 

 glandular-dentate or entire, with thickened slightly revolute margins, when they 

 unfold light red and more or less pilose or puberulous, and at maturity coriaceous, 

 dark green and lustrous above, paler below, glabrous or often puberulous on the 

 midribs and veins, reticulate-venulose, ^'-2^' long, ^'-1' wide, and sessile or short- 

 petiolate, southward persistent for a year, northward deciduous during the winter. 

 Flowers appearing from March to May on slender drooping pedicels ^' long, 

 bibracteolate near the middle, with 2 minute acute scarious caducous bractlets, soli- 

 tary in the axils of leaves of the year or arranged in terminal puberulous racemes 



2'-3' long from the axils of leafy or minute acute scarious bracts; corolla white, 

 open-campanulate, slightly 5-lobed, with acute reflexed lobes, longer than the 10 

 stamens; filaments hirsute ;. anther-cells opening by oblique elongated pores. Fruit 

 ripening in October, sometimes persistent on the branches until the end of winter, 

 globose, y in diameter, black and lustrous, with dry glandular slightly astringent 

 flesh of a pleasant flavor. 



A tree, 20-30 high, with a short often crooked trunk occasionally 8'-10' in 

 diameter, slender more or less contorted branches forming an irregular round-topped 

 head, and slender branchlets light red and covered with pale pubescence when they 

 first appear, glabrous or puberulous and bright red-brown in their first winter, later 

 becoming dark red and marked by minute elevated nearly orbicular leaf -scars; or 

 northward generally reduced to a low shrub, with numerous divergent stems. 

 Winter-buds obtuse, nearly Jg' long, with imbricated ovate acute chestnut-brown 

 scales often persistent on the base of the branchlet throughout the season. Wood 

 heavy, hard, very close-grained, light brown tinged with red, with thick hardly dis- 

 tinguishable sapwood; sometimes used for the handles of tools and in the mauufac- 



