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5o6 FLOWERS OF FIELD, HILL, AND SWAMP 



a black, berry-like drupe formed by the calyx clinging to the 

 ovary, lo-celled, each cell containing i bony seed. Many of 

 these fail of coming to perfection, only 2 or 3 maturing. A 

 much-branched shrub, i to 3 feet high. 



This is the common black huckleberry of the markets, a glossy- 

 black, hard-seeded fruit. There are many varieties, one with 

 larger berries, one with leaves and berries covered with a black- 

 ish bloom. 



Of the genus gaylussacia there are nearly 80 species, some of 

 them trees, most of them bearing edible berries. 



Whortleberry means hart's-berry, from the Saxon heort-berry. 

 Along the Atlantic seaboard there are but 3 species, not con- 

 founding them with blueberries, which are now considered a 

 separate genus. All turn bright red in fall, and are among those 

 shrubs which help to cover the fields, pastures, and roadsides 

 with masses of fine color. 



8g. Blue Tangle. Dangleberry 



G. froiuVosa is a species with large, pale-green, blunt-pointea 

 leaves and flowers hanging or dangling from long, slender pe- 

 duncles in irregular clusters. Fruit, round, large, bluish-black 

 berries with a whitish bloom, ripening later than the preceding. 



The sweetest and finest of these fruits is found growing on 

 bushes in moist woods or by the sides of lakes or slow streams, 

 along the coast of New England southward, in the mountains of 

 Pennsylvania — where it attains its greatest perfection— to the Gulf. 



go. Dwarf Huckleberry 



G. dumbsa is a branching bush i to 5 feet high, with creep- 

 ing base and hairy and glandular stems. Flowers, 5 in a 

 cluster, in June. Corolla, large, waxy white, sometimes tinged 

 with pink. Anthers brown, nearly divided to their base, on 

 white filaments. Shrub resinous - dotted. The round, black 

 fruit is rather insipid. 



Ill sandy swamps all along our coast. 



