Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/637

 WHORTLEBERRY 613 the four to five cells of the fruit are sometimes divided into eight or ten cells by the growth of a partition as the fruit matures, but in either case are many-seeded. In both genera are species with evergreen and with deciduous leaves. There are about 30 species of Gaylus- sacia in South America, and about five in the United States. The most important species is G. resinosa, so named on account of the resinous globules which are very conspicuous to the touch, and they are also abundant on the young leaves, rendering them' viscid on the calyx and corolla ; it is a much-branched shrub, 1 to 3 ft. high, with oval or oblong leaves; flowers in short, one-sided racemes, the corolla at first five-angled, conical and con- tracted at the mouth, at length cylindrical and open, reddish, tinged with yellowish green; the fruit globular and shining black, with a pleasant, slightly acid flavor. This is common except in the southwest, and is everywhere Black Whortleberry (Gaylussacia resinosa). known as the black huckleberry, but dealers often distinguish the berries as crackers ; they bear transportation better than any other, on account of their greater firmness. A va- riety occasionally occurs with the berries near- ly white, or with a pink tinge. The dwarf whortleberry (G. dumosa), about as tall as the preceding, is found in sandy soil near the coast from Maine to Florida; its leaves are hairy when young, but thick and shining when old ; the long racemes of white flowers with con- spicuous bracts, the ovary bristly, corolla bell- shaped ; fruit black and insipid. The dangle- berry (G. frondosa), also called blue-tangle, is 3 to 6 ft. high, with spreading branches; its large, late fruit is by many regarded as superior to all others. The genus vaccinium (an ancient name of obscure derivation) contains about 100 species, natives of temperate and subtropical Europe, Asia, and America, and is subdivided into several well marked subgenera. (See BIL- BERRY, and CBANBEBBY.) The species known here and in England as cowberry is V. titit Idaa, a prostrate evergreen, with small, dark green, obovate leaves, bell-shaped pink flowers with four or five spreading lobes, and red Danglebeny (Gaylussacia frondosa). acid, bitterish, and somewhat astringent ber- ries, much esteemed in northern Europe for preserving ; it is found in northern New Eng- land, especially on the mountains. In New England the fruit of the vacciniums are gen- erally called blueberries, though some of this genus have black fruit, when they are called huckleberries ; the distinction, seldom made elsewhere, being founded on the color of the fruit, rather than on the plant producing it. The earliest fruit is afforded by the dwarf blue- Cowberry (Vaccininm Vitls Idea). berry ( V. Pennsylvanicum), a prostrate shrub rarely over a foot high, which in the northern- most states covers large tracts, bearing in July profusion of large blue berries, with a dense