Vaccinium boreale


Vaccinium boreale, common name northern blueberry, sweet hurts, or bleuet boréal, is a plant species native to North America.

Description

Vaccinium boreale is a lowbush blueberry, forming a small shrub up to tall, in dense colonies of many individuals. Twigs are green, angled, with lines of hairs. Leaves are deciduous, narrowly elliptic, up to long, with teeth along the margins. Flowers are white, up to long. Berries are blue, up to 5 mm across. Cytology is 2n = 24.

Distribution and habitat

The species is native to the northeastern United States and eastern Canada. It has been found in Québec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York State. It grows in tundra, rocky uplands, and in open conifer forests at elevations up to.

Cultivation

Lowbush blueberries, sometimes called "wild blueberries", are generally not planted by farmers, but rather are cultivated and picked wild on berry fields called "barrens".