140 HANDBOOK 14S, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



21. Short, spurlike twigs lacking; leafstalk stumps con- 

 spicuous, 3-nerved (outer 2 nerves apparently pass- 

 ing up and out to near tips of the attached, tan to 

 brownish, tissue-papery stipules), nearly enclosing the 

 comparatively large buds and almost encircling the 

 twigs; bud scales about 4, striate; bark tan to cinna- 

 mon or dark reddish brown, mostly finely silky-hairy 

 (hairs usually from tiny, pimplelike bases), soon 

 shreddy; low, bushy or straggly shrubs less than 5 

 feet high, often with twisted stems and the lowest 

 twigs almost stolonlike; moist mountain valleys or 

 meadows, e. Oreg., e. Wash. 



bush cinquefoil (Potentilla fruticosa). 

 19. Leafstalk stumps, stipules, and leaf scars not as above. 

 22. Leaf scars with only 1 bundle trace. 



23. True end buds lacking, stem tips dying back to tiny 

 stub at side of topmost side bud; fruit berries. 

 24. Bud scales 2, meeting at edges but not overlapping 

 (valvate). 

 25. Twigs grooved and/or angled. 



26. Shrubs low (to 15 inches high), broomy with 

 fine bright green, deeply grooved, sharp-angled 

 twigs; berries red; often in carpetlike patches 

 under lodgepole pine; Cascades, Wallowa and 

 Blue Mts., e. Oreg., e. Wash. 

 grouse whortleberry {Vaccinium scoparium). 

 26. Shrubs tall (to 3 feet or more high). 



27. Twigs often bright red (sometimes green in 

 shady sites), ascending to somewhat spread- 

 ing, shallowly grooved, slightly angled, often 

 hoary with tiny, whitish, curved hairs, rarely 

 with white-waxy "bloom"; flowering with or 

 after leaf-unfolding; berries purplish-black, 

 flattened-globe-shaped; e. slopes of Cascades, 

 Wallowa and Blue Mts., e. Oreg., e. Wash. 

 big whortleberry {Vaccinium 

 membranaceum) . 33 

 27. Twigs reddish in grooves, greenish on 

 angles, hairless, glandless, with slight white- 

 waxy "bloom," rather deeply grooved near 

 tips, nearly round toward base; flowering 

 before leaves unfold; berries blue with white- 

 waxy "bloom," globe-shaped; usually strag- 

 gling shrubs (to 12 feet high in good sites); 

 common on e. slopes of Cascades, Wash, and 

 n. Oreg., scattered or rare in s. Oreg. 



ovalleaf whortleberry {Vaccinium 



ovalifolium) . 



33 In the Blue Mountains area of northeastern Oregon and southeastern Wash- 

 ington, big whortleberry shrubs tend to be less coarse and not so tall as those 

 of the Cascades, and their berries are more flattened and less juicy. These big 

 whortleberries of the Blue Mountain area are referred to the Vaccinium globulare 

 complex by some authors. (See Dr. Ray J. Davis' Flora of Idaho, 1952; also 

 Dr. W. H. Camp. Britt. 4: 205-247. 1942.) 



