Vaccinium. ERICACEAE. 25 



sistent : flowers in short racemes or clusters from separate buds : bracteate and 



2-bracteolate. 



# Flowers 5-merous, 10-androus. 



V. OVatum, Pursh. Erect evergreen shrub, 3 to 5 feet high, rigid : branehlets pubes- 

 cent: leaves thick aud firm, very numerous, from oblong-ovate to oblong-lanceolate, acute, 

 minutely and acutely serrate, glabrous or nearly so, bright green both sides, an inch or so 

 long; the veins obscure or hidden: flowers in short and close axillary clusters : bracts raid 

 bractlets deciduous: corolla carapanulate, 2 lines long, rose-color or flesh-color,. barely 

 thrice the length of the triangular acute reddish calyx-lobes : berries reddish turning 

 black, small, sweetish. — Fl. i. 290; Lindl. Bot. Reg. t. 1304. V. lanceolatum, Dunal in DC. 

 1. c. 570, a narrow-leaved form. Metagonia (Pyxothamnus) ooata, Nutt. I.e. — Vancouver's 

 Island to Montevey, &c, California, on hills near the coast. 



V. crassifolium, J^ndr. Procumbent, the trailing slender stems 2 or 3 feet long, 

 glabrous or nearly sn : leaves small, a quarter to half inch long, from oval to narrowly 

 oblong, sparsely mucronate-serrulate or entire, shining : flowers few and almost sessile in 

 small axillary cluster : bracts scaly-coriaceous, persistent : corolla globose-campanulate, 

 nearly white : anther*? oils barely pointed at apex : berries black. — Bot. Rep. t. 105 ; Bot. 

 Mag. t. 1152 ; Chapm. FL 250. V. curnosum, Pers. Syn. i. 479. V. myrtifolium, Michx. Fl. i. 

 229. Metagonia myrtifolia, Nutt. 1. c. — Sandy bogs, N. Carolina to Georgia, near the coast. 

 Habit of Cranberry. 



# # Flowers 4-merous, 8-androus. 



V. Vi.tis-Id.8ea, L. (Cowberry, Mocntain- Cranberry.) Almost glabrous, tufted, 3 

 inches to a span or more high from creeping stems: leaves crowded, obovate or oval, 

 emarginate (a quarter to over half inch long), shining above, paler and bristly dark-dotted 

 beneath; the margins revolute, entire or obscurely serrulate : flowers crowded in a short 

 and terminal secund and nodding raceme : bracts reddish, nearly persistent : corolla white 

 or rose-color, o'pen-campanulate, rather deeply 4-lobed : berries dark red, acid and bitterish, 

 edible when cooked (a fair substitute for cranberries). — Fl. Dan. t. 40; Lodd. Bot. Cab. 

 t. 010. V. punctalum, Lam. — Round the Arctic circle, south to the coast and mountains of 

 N. New-England, and Lake Winipeg ; on the western coast south to British Columbia. 

 (Greenland to Japan.) 



§ 5. £)xyc6ccus. (Oxycoccus, Pers.) Corolla deeply 4-cleft or 4-parted; the 

 lobes linear or lanceolate-oblong and reflexed : anthers exserted, awnless, with 

 very long terminal tubes : ovary and berry 4-celled, destitute of false partitions : 

 (lowers axillary and terminal, nodding on long filiform pedicels, appearing in early 

 summer ; fruit maturing in autumn. h 



# Erect shrubs, with deciduous membranaceous leaves and berries of Euvaccinium, but corolla of 

 true Oxycoccus: flowers solitary in the axils : pedicel bractless but minutely 2-bracteolate at base: 

 corolla conical-rostrate in the bud, deeply 4-cleft: filaments villous. ( V. Japmikum of Miquel is 

 a very nearly related Japanese species.) — Vaccinium § Oxycoccoides, Benth. & Hook. 



V. erythrocarpon, Michx. Divergently branching shrub, 1 to 4 feet high, slightly 

 pubescent : leaves oblong lanceolate or ovate-oblong, acuminate, finely serrate with bristle- 

 tipped teeth, thin, bright green both sides, veiny, acute or merely obtuse at base (1J to 

 3 inches long) : pedicel about half the length of the leaf: corolla flesh-color (about half 

 inch long) : berry light red, turning nearly black at full maturity, watery, slightly acid. — 

 Fl. i. 227. Oxycoccus erectus, Pursh, Fl. i. 264. O. erythrocarpus, Ell. Sk. i. 447. — Damp 

 woods in the higher Alleghanies, Virginia to Georgia. 



# # (Cranberry.) Trailing and creeping lignescent plants, with filiform stems, and small per- 



sistent leaves with entire revolute mar-gins and the lower face whitened: filiform pedicels 1 to 4 

 from a terminal scaly bud, erect, and bearing a flesh-colored or pale rose-colored flower nod- 

 ding from its apex : corolla conical-cylindraccous in the bud, deeply 4-parted: filaments puberu- 

 lent: berry red and acid. — Oxycoccus (Pers.), Benth. & Hook. 



V. Oxycoccus, L. (Small Cranberry.) Stems very slender, creeping: leaves ovate, 

 acute JL 2 to 4 lines long; the margins much revolute: pedicels 1 to 4 in a fascicle from a 

 terminal and not proliferous thin-scaly bud : filaments commonly fully half the length of 

 the anthers : berry globose, a quarter to a third of an inch in diameter, often spotted when 



