19S S) STHMATIC l'()M(HJH,y 



iHM'ries of low-growin*; spccit's ari' callrd blueberries. Tlic New 

 Enp:land usage of blueberry for spceios of Vaeeinium and 

 luiekleberry for Gaylussacias is l)(^st, and tbe names will be so 

 aj^plied in this text. 



293. The genus Vaeeinium deseribed. — Vaeeinium is much 

 more the imi)ortant of the two genera of lieath plants which have 

 furnished cultivated fruits. Its chief characters are as follows: 



Erect or traiHnjj: woody plants. Leaves evergreen or deciduous, alternate, 

 leatliory or succulent. Flowers axillary or terminal, solitary, clustered or 

 raccmed; white or reddish; corolla variously shaped, 4-5 cleft; sepals 4-5 

 or obsolete; stamen 8 or 10; anthers opening by a hole at the apex. Fruit 

 a berry, 4-5 celled, many seeded, sometimes 8-10 celled by a fake partition 

 from the back of the cell to the placenta; capped by the persistent calyx. 



294. Distribution of Vaeeinium. — The value of the wild fruits 

 of this genus and its prospective importance under domestica- 

 tion are indicated by its wide distribution and its many species. 

 The genus is represented by more than a hundred species which 

 encircle the globe in the north temperate zone, a few being found 

 in the south temperate zone. In the northern hemisphere, 

 species are native from the mountains of the tropics to wtII 

 within the Arctic Circle. Vacciniums are most common in 

 temperate North America and the mountains of central and 

 southern Asia. 



Cultivated cranberries belong to two species of Vaeeinium. 

 Both are slender, trailing, evergreen bog-plants, bearing vari- 

 ously shaped light or dark-red berries in great profusion. The 

 name comes from the fancied resemblance of the bud just before 

 opening, with its slender curving pedicel, to the head and neck 

 of a crane, whence cranelierry, shortened to cranberry. 



295. Vaeeinium maeroearpon, the large eranberry, deseribed. 

 • — The large cranberry is grown on thousands of acres in widely 

 separated regions in North America, and is one of the most 

 specialized and interesting of all pomological crops. 



1. Vaeeinium mareroearpon, Ait. Stems slender and creeping, but com- 

 paratively stout, 1-4 feet long, the flowering branches ascending. Leaves 

 oblong-elliptic, 1/3 to ^ inch in length, 1/6-1/3 inch broad, blunt or 

 rounded at the tip, flat or inclined to be revolute at the margin, evergreen, 

 leathery, dark green and glossy above, whitened beneath, glabrous. Flowers 

 pale rose-colored, nodding, 1-10, borne on long filiform pedicels, in early 



