400 THE HUCKLEBERRY FAMILY. 



Cherokee County, fifty years earlier by Mr. S. B, Buckley. To the inhabi- 

 tants of this region they proclaimed that they were looking for " a hairy 

 huckleberry ; " as the distinctive characteristic of the plant is that hardly 

 one of its growing parts can be examined which has not a fine coating of 

 hairs. Finally they offered a reward of five dollars for such an one, and the 

 plan worked like a charm. It set the country boys seeking huckleberries 

 with wonderful energy. They even forgot their appetites. Not until the 

 following summer, however, did Professor Sargent receive from Mr. W. F. 

 Manney of Robbinsville a box of Vaccinium fruit covered with the desired 

 short, white hairs. Later a supply of seedlings and grafts was sent to the 

 Arboretum. Although still regarded as a rarity the shrub is now being re- 

 ported from a number of points. 



V. pallidum, pale or mountain blueberry, is famed for its large blue 

 fruit, the most deliciously flavoured of any of the genus. Through the moun- 

 tainous parts of the south from Virginia to South Carolina, it prefers to grow. 

 On the trail up Grandfather Mountain I saw it occurring sparingly most of 

 the way. But on the rocky summit where the strong sun of mid-day poured 

 down it spread itself over the ground in great abundance, fairly disputing in 

 spots the possession of that high place with the sand myrtle. It was then 

 early in the autumn, and while much verdure was still seen its thin leaves 

 had already turned to deep red. Many of them were sharply serrulate, 

 others only minutely so, and again they looked to be entire and ciliate. 



V. arbor eiun, farkleberry, always readily known through its habit of 

 sometimes becoming a small tree, often twenty feet, and rarely thirty 

 feet, tall, and because it grows best in dry mostly sandy soil of open woods. 

 Its bell-shaped flowers, in leafy racemes, are produced most abundantly, 

 and not until the shiny, oval leaves have dropped in the winter do the black 

 berries ripen. They are not at all edible. 



V. stainbieum, deerberry or squaw huckleberry, which in dry woods be- 

 comes as high as five feet, shows the peculiarity of having its hairy stamens 

 exserted beyond its bell-shaped, slightly spreading corolla. These flowers, 

 moreover, are abundantly borne in leafy racemes, and hang from thread- 

 like pedicels. The berry is mostly green, or yellow, and even when fully ripe 

 is hardly fit to eat. 



V. crassifbliiiin shows an extreme of the genus in being of procumbent 

 habit, and in bearing many small oval leaves, thick and shiny. The white, or 

 rose coloured, corolla also is small and of a rounded bell shape. Usually the 

 plant inhabits sandy soil near the coast, or else is found in the pme- 

 barrens. 



V. 7iitidum, a close-growing, compact little thing, seldom over two 

 feet, bears an abundance of very small and evergreen foliage. Its home 



