IMPORTANT WESTERN BROWSE PLANTS 135 
ing animals to reach it. It is generally considered fair to fairly good 
sheep and goat feed, especially in the fall, and is appreciably cropped 
by cattle also in some places. 
Rocky Mountain whortleberry (V. oreophilum) 2" usually known 
simply as huckleberry, is a low undershrub ranging at high eleva- 
tions, largely between 8,000 and 11,500 feet in the central Rocky 
Mountains, from British Columbia to Alberta and northern New 
Mexico, often occurring in lodgepole pine timber. It is a local but 
fairly abundant species and, while worthless for cattle, is sometimes 
fair sheep feed. 
Blue whortleberry (V. ovalifolium), known also as big, oval-leaf, 
and tall bilberry, or blueberry, is a large thin-leaved shrub 8 to 12 
feet high, growing in both dry and moist woods, in meadows and 
swamps from Quebec to Michigan, Oregon, Alaska, and Japan, from 
sea level to about 5,500 feet. In some places it furnishes browse for 
sheep and goats. 
Box blueberry (V. ovatum, syn. Vitis-idaea ovata), a tall (4 to 8 
feet high), stout, thick and evergreen leaved plant, is found near 
the Pacific from California to Vancouver Island, not infrequently 
being the dominant element in the understory of redwood and 
Douglas fir coastal forests from sea level up to about 2,500 feet or 
so. In some places sheep crop it fairly well, especially in fall, 
winter, and early spring. 
Red whortleberry (V. parvifolium) is the largest of the western 
huckleberries, sometimes reaching a height of 18 feet, and ranges 
between sea level and about 5,000 feet from Alaska to California 
west of the Cascades and Sierras. Numerous vernacular names are 
used for this well-marked species, including red (or tall red) bil- 
berry, blueberry, and huckleberry. It occurs in dry but more com- 
monly in moist conifer woods, often in association with Sitka 
spruce, Douglas fir, redwood, salal, and box blueberry, reaching its 
best development in moist spots of the spruce type where there 
is an accumulation of duff and humus. The leafage is rather 
scanty, but its thinness and moderate palatability, combined with 
the slender and delicate twigs, and the fact that the shrub is often 
very abundant and is frequently associated with decidedly inferior 
forage plants, give this species some local browse utility for sheep 
and occasionally for cattle also. 3 
Grouse whortleberry (V. scopariwm, syns. V. erythrococcum, V. 
myrtillus microphyllum Hook. (1834), and V. mcrophyllum 
(Hook.) Rydb., not V. microphyllum Reinw. (1826)) is perhaps 
the most abundant and widespread as well as the smallest and small- 
est leaved of the western (so-called) huckleberry species. It is known 
also as dwarf, red, small, and small-leaved huckleberry, and. as red 
alpine blueberry. It ranges from British Columbia to California, 
northern New Mexico, and Alberta, and is an undershrub 4 to 8 
(rarely 12) inches high, with sharply angled, bright-green branches, 
and small, thin, pale leaves. It has a great altitudinal variation, 
occurring at least from 2,500 to 12,500 feet, on all slopes. It 1s found 
on both dry and moist sites, but is especially characteristic of sandy 
2 Vaccinium myrtillus of American authors (not L.) is, largely at least, a synonym of 
this, 
