256 Minnesota Plant Life. 



south very sparini^ly to Winona county. It is a little trailing 

 shrub, with leathery entire, evergreen, spoon-shaped leaves and 

 a few small, white, vase-shaped flowers in terminal racemes. 

 The berries are red and rather tasteless. 



Leatherleafs. The leatherleaf occurs in cold bogs from the 

 north shore of Lake Sni)erior to Lake of the \\'oods, and south 

 into the valley of the St. Croix. It is a branching shrub, 

 usually about two feet in height. The leaves are evergreen, 

 oblong, ovate in shape, and when young provided with scurfy 

 hairs or scales on both sides. The flowers are produced in large 

 numbers towards the ends of the l^ranches. Each flower nods 

 in the axil of a leaf, is wdiite and urn-shaped and ])ro(luces a 

 spherical, deeply five-grooved fruit. 



Blueberries and cranberries. The blueberries and cranber- 

 ries, of which there are al)OUt eleven varieties in the state, 

 include some well-known forms. Here are to be classified the 

 bog huckleberry, the dwarf bilberry, the thin-leafed bilberry, 

 the tall bilberry, the tall blueberry, the Canada blueberry, the 

 low blueberry, the mountain cranberry or cowberry, the deer- 

 berry, the small and the large cran1)erry. Most of these are 

 found only in the northern part the state, especially along the 

 international boundary and the north side of Lake Superior, 

 extending, as so many northern plants do. down the valley of 

 the St. Croix, through which in early days Lake Superior 

 drained into the Mississippi river. 



Blueberries. The dift'crent kinds of blueberries or bilberries 

 are to be discriminated by their foliage and by the flavor of the 

 berries. The one most connnon is the dwarf or h^w blueberry, 

 gathered in large (piantities for the market. Its fruits are 

 blue with a whitisli bloom and arc of \cry pleasant flavor, 

 enjoyed alike by the Indians and tlie whites. The plant is a 

 low shrub, with pale green leaves, not evergreen. Its flowers 

 are vase-shaped, small, and white or ])ink. 



The deerberry, which reseml)les the blueberry in some re- 

 spects, is considerably larger — three or four feet in height. The 

 berries, shaped like the blueberries, are greenish or yellow and 

 not edible. This \ariety is also called the scjuaw huckleberry. 



The Canada blueberry, found growing in nuich moister soil 

 than the ordinary form, has smaller berries, of a blue color, with 



