622 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



Family VACCINIACE^. Huckleberries, etc. 

 Key to the Species. 



a. Trailing vine, corolla, white tinged with pink, deeply four parted, with 

 rcflexed lobes. Eerry large, crimson. Oxycoccus, p. 627 



aa. Erect shrubs. 



b. Flowers open, campanulate, yellowish or purplish green, berry green or 

 yellowish. Polycodium, p. 624 



bb. Flowers cylindrical, bell-shaped. 

 c. Leaves entire. 



d. Pale and glaucous beneath. 



e. Berries in loose racemes, bracts foliacious, deciduous 

 flowers greenish pink. Gaylussacia frondosa, p. 623 



ee. Berries in more compact racemes, bracts none. 

 /. Bushes 2-4 m. high. 



g. Berries black, flowers pink, appearing before the 

 leaves, leaves pubescent beneath. 



Vaccinium atrococcum, p. 626 

 gg. Berries blue, flowers white, appearing with the 

 leaves, leaves nearly or quite glabrous. 



V. corymhosum, p. 624 



ff. Bushes 1.5-8 dm. high, berries blue, leaves glabrous, 



flowers pink. V. vaccillans, p. 627 



dd. Leaves resinous dotted, green on both sides, racemes leafy, 



berries black. 



e. Bracts inconspicuous, deciduous. 



Gaylussacia baccata, p. 624 

 ee. Bracts leaf-like, persistent, berries somewhat hisped. 



G. dumosa, p. 623 

 cc. Leaves serrate, small twigs green. 



d. Leaves narrowly oval-oblong 25-65X12-25 mm. 



e. Shrub 9-30 dm. high. Vaccinium virgatum, p. 625 



ee. Shrub 1.5-8 dm. high. V. vaccillans, p. 627 



dd. Leaves acute at both ends, 18-36X6-12 mm., shrub 1.5-6 dm. 



high. V. pennsylcanicum, p. 626 



Large quantities of huckleberries are gathered and shipped 

 out of southern New Jersey every year. Vaccinium corym- 

 hosum yields the best berry, but it is not so plentiful as the 

 lower species, and growing in the swamps is harder to get at. 

 The bulk of the crop consists of V. vaccillans, Gaylussacia baccata 

 and G. frondosa. The somewhat liispid berries of G. dumosa — 

 "Grouseberry" as it is locally called — do not seem to be market- 

 able, while Vaccinium pcnnsylvanicum, such an abundant fruit 

 bearer in the mountains, does not seem to develop full-sized fruit 

 in this region, at least not in the lower part. 



