CHAPTER XVII 

 THE HEATH-FRUITS 



Several heath-plants are favorite wild fruits in all quarters 

 of the ^lobe. These are variously called blueberries, bilberries, 

 huckleberries, cranberries, whortleberries, whinberries, bil- 

 berries, moorberries, deerberries, farkleberries, cowberries, 

 foxberries, and dangleberries. These plants belong to as many 

 species as there are common names, or more, as some of the 

 common names are applied to more than one species. All are 

 members of two genera in the heath family, Vaccinium and 

 Gaylussacia, both of which are composed of Avoody plants pre- 

 senting all gradations from slender, delicate, trailing vines to 

 sturdy shrubs. Both genera are of social habit, most of the 

 species, wherever found, covering extensive tracts; both prefer 

 the humus of peat-bogs, swamps, woods, or heath. 



292. Common names of fruits in Vaccinium and Gaylussacia. 

 — There is much confusion in the common names of species of 

 Vaccinium. AVhile those in the botanies, as given on this page, 

 may have been used by English-speaking persons somewhere 

 or sometime, they are now seldom heard in America. Heath- 

 fruits pass under three common names in North America — 

 cranberries, blueberries, and huckleberries. Red-fruited species 

 of Vaccinium are almost universally called cranberries, with 

 such qualifying adjectives as large, small, low-bush, or high- 

 bush. It is not so easy to define the use of blueberry and huckle- 

 berry. In most parts of the United States, the two names are 

 employed without distinction, but in the North Atlantic and 

 New England states blueberries are fruits of the genus 

 Vaccinium in which the seeds are numerous but so small as not 

 to be noticed in eating, while huckleberries are fruits of the 

 genus Gaylussacia, the berries of which contain ten large hard 

 seeds. In some of the central states, huckleberries are the 

 produce of the high-bush dark-fruited Vacciniums, while the 



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