52 



ERICACEAE 



several to many-seeded. Fruit a berry, crowned with the vestiges of the calyx- 

 teeth. — Species about 100, all continents save Australia. (Classical Latin name of 

 the bilberry. ) 



Foliage deciduous; flowers solitary (sometimes 2 or more in a cluster in nos. 2 and 3) ; filaments 

 glabrous ; anthers awned ; herbage glabrous. — Subgenus Euv.^cciNlUM. 

 Branchlets not strongly angled; berry blue or black (or at iirst red in no. 3). 

 Calyx deeply 5-lobed or -parted; leaves entire; low plants. 



Leaves thin, only slightly veiny 1. F. occidentale. 



Leaves thickish, reticulate-veiny 2. V. uliginosum. 



Calyx entire (as if truncate) or nearly so; leaves serrulate. 



Plants 2 to 4 feet high ; leaf-blades 1 to 2 inches long 3. V. membranaceum. 



Plants low or dwarfish ; leaf -blades mostly % to 1 inch long 4. F. caespitosum. 



Branchlets strongly angled ; berry red. 



Plants 3 to 12 feet tall; branchlets spreading; leaves entire 5. F. parvifolium. 



Plants low or dwarfish ; branchlets fastigiate ; leaves serrulate 6. F. myrtillus. 



Foliage evergreen ; flowers in lateral racemes ; filaments hairy or puberulent ; anthers awnless ; 



branchlets and petioles pubescent, the leaves glabrous. — Subgenus Vitis-idaea 



7. F. ovatum. 



1. V. occidentale Gray. Western Blueberry. (Pig. 300.) Low shrub (11/2 

 to 3 feet high), with stoutish stems and numerous clustered and erect branchlets; 

 leaf -blades obovate or obovate-oblong, glaucescent on the under surface, entire, 

 ^/4 to % inch long; pedicels 1 to 4 lines long; flowers solitary or in clusters of 2; 

 calyx 5-parted ; corolla white, oblong-cylindric, 2 to 4 lines long, mostly 4-toothed ; 

 berry blue-black with a bloom, elliptic to oblong, 2^4 to 4 lines in diameter, on a 

 pendulous pedicel. 



Swamps or wet meadows, 5000 to 8000 (or 10,900) feet: Sierra Nevada from 

 Tulare Co. to eastern Siskiyou Co. ; northern Humboldt Co. to western Siskiyoii 



Co. East to Utah, north to Washington. June- 



1i'-'^5i\'A c<S5irW" Locs. — Sierra Nevada: Sequoia Park, Walter Fry 47; 



ij.^^^ /) i^)c^ Rock Creek lake basin, w. Inyo Co., Peirson 9480 ; Hunt- 



/»^^5^', i^ J^^^N ington Lake, Jepson 12,971 ; Harden Ranch, Tuolumne 



r'' T^&vf /^^Jf f^'^^Jf^T^iSj^ Co., Jepson 10,566; Dorrington, Calaveras Co., Jepson 10,- 



i'^^^J/)^ ijp/ 188 ; Pioneer road sta., North Fork Yuba River, Jepson 



'^m/'^J^^ 16,845; Medicine Lake, Siskiyou Co., M. S. Balcer 478. 



^ North Coast Ranges: Trinity Summit, n. Humboldt Co., 



ui/ ^1 TraPi/ 14,262 ; Sisson, Siskiyou Co., Jfp^on 14,689. 



J^3* ^ Vi^Jt Eefs. — Vaccinium occiDENTAiE Gray, Bot. Cal. 1:451 



(1876), type from the Sierra Nevada, Bolander ; Jepson, 



Fh W. Mid. Cal. 374 (1901), ed. 2, 315 (1911), Man. 751 



(1925). 



2. V. uliginosum L. Bog Bilberry. (Fig. 

 C 301.) Low shrub 1 2 to 2 feet high, freely branch- 



ing ; branchlets not angled ; leaf-blades oval to 

 ..-•)'(', x cuneate-obovate, obtuse or abruptly short-acute, 

 b II M''--' ' 1\ mostly crowded on the short branchlets, 2% to 6 



rj V^&>''f'') lines long, paler beneath, entire, thickish, reticu- 



■*■' late-veiny (especially beneath) ; flowers solitary 



or in 2s; pedicels 1 to 2 (or 3) lines long; calyx 

 deeply 5-parted ; corolla pink, ovoid to globose, 3 

 Q to 4 lines long; berry large, blue, somewhat glau- 



„. ^,„ ,, cous, 5 to 6 lines broad, borne on a drooping pedicel. 



Fig. 300, \ACCINIT:IM OCCIDENTALE ' , , nc\ £ ^ TI 1 1 Ti i^ -NT il. 



Gray a, f r. branchlet, X Va ; b, fl., Sphagnum bogs, 20 feet : Humboldt Co. North 



X 3; c, fr., X 2. to Alaska, east to New England and Labrador. 



Europe, Asia. July. 

 Geog. note. — Vaccinium uliginosum was discovered in California in 1924 by J. P. Tracy at 

 Big Lagoon in Humboldt Co. (no. 6725). This is our only knowni station and is doubtless the 

 southernmost station on the Pacific Coast and perhaps in North America. The leaves in the Hum- 

 boldt shrub are mucronulate at apex and thus answer to var. mucronatum Herder, but such a 

 variety seems inconsiderable, since in size, shape, reticulation and apex of leaves, the plant of 



