Vaccinium stamineum

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Vaccinium stamineum
Vaccinium stamineum 1.jpg
Status TNC G5.svg
Secure  (NatureServe) [1]
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Ericales
Family: Ericaceae
Genus: Vaccinium
Species:
V. stamineum
Binomial name
Vaccinium stamineum
L. 1753
Synonyms [2]
Synonymy
  • Polycodium asheiHarbison
  • Polycodium candicans(C. Mohr) Small
  • Polycodium depressumSmall
  • Polycodium floridanum(Nuttall) Greene
  • Polycodium leptosepalumSmall
  • Polycodium macilentumSmall
  • Polycodium melanocarpum(C. Mohr) Small
  • Polycodium neglectumSmall
  • Polycodium stamineum(Linnaeus) Greene
  • Vaccinium caesiumGreene
  • Vaccinium melanocarpum(C. Mohr) C. Mohr ex Kearney
  • Vaccinium neglectum(Small) Fernald
  • Vaccinium stamineum var. affine(Ashe) Sleumer
  • Vaccinium stamineum var. austromontanum(Ashe) Sleumer
  • Vaccinium stamineum var. interius(Ashe) E. J. Palmer & Steyermark
  • Vaccinium stamineum var. melanocarpumC. Mohr
  • Vaccinium stamineum var. neglectum(Small) Deam
  • Vaccinium stamineum var. virginianum(Ashe) Sleumer

Vaccinium stamineum, commonly known as deerberry, tall deerberry, highbush huckleberry, buckberry, and southern gooseberry, is a species of flowering plant in the heath family. [3] It is native to North America, including Ontario, the eastern and central United States, and parts of Mexico. [4] [5] It is most common in the southeastern United States. [3]

Contents

Description

This species is quite variable in morphology. [6] It is a shrub usually growing up to 1.5 meters (60 inches or 5 feet) tall, but reaching up to 3 meters (10 feet) at times. It has multiple twisted trunks covered in peeling reddish bark and is highly branched, tapering into thin twigs, some just a millimeter wide. It is deciduous, with alternately arranged leaves. The thin leaf blades are yellow-green, sometimes hairy or waxy in texture, especially on the undersides, and oval in shape with pointed tips and smooth edges. They are up to 7 centimeters (2.8 inches) long by 2.5 cm (1 inch) wide. The flowers are borne in hanging inflorescences from the leaf axils. Each flower has five green sepals and a bell-shaped corolla of five fused white petals about half a centimeter (0.2 inches) long. The long, yellow stamens protrude, bearing long, tubular anthers. The style is longer than the stamens. The fruit is a spherical berry about a centimeter wide. It is greenish or yellowish, often with a purple tinge. [3] [2]

Biology and ecology

This plant usually grows in dry, rocky habitat types in forests and fields, but it sometimes occurs in moist areas such as bogs and swamps. It grows in acidic, well-drained soils. It is wildfire-adapted and associated with fire-tolerant vegetation. [3]

It establishes via seed, and commonly spreads via woody rhizomes, with a single plant forming what appears to be a thicket with many trunks. Because most of the mass of the plant is underground, it easily survives fire and the above-ground parts grow back. [3]

The fruits are large for a Vaccinium species. They are an important food source for many kinds of wildlife. They are eagerly consumed by deer along with the twigs and foliage, the inspiration for the common names deerberry and buckberry. Smaller animals gather fallen fruits from the ground. They are food for many songbirds, ruffed grouse, bobwhite quail, wild turkey, foxes, raccoons, black bears, chipmunks, and squirrels. [3]

The plant is pollinated by bees, the primary pollinator being Melitta eickworti . [7] Bees dislodge, accumulate, and disperse pollen with buzz pollination while foraging nectar from the bell-shaped flowers. [6] This species is a host to the blueberry maggot (Rhagoletis mendax) a pest of blueberry crops. [3]

Uses

The fruit is edible for humans, and the taste has been described as tart, sour, bitter, or "sweet-spicy tasting, a little reminiscent of lady's perfume". [3] It has long been collected in the southern United States for preserves and pie filling. [8] Deerberries contain potent free radical scavenging activities. [9] However, deerberry is of the Vaccinium genus, which typically contains high amounts of oxalates. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cranberry</span> Plant species bearing edible fruit

Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus Oxycoccus of the genus Vaccinium. In Britain, cranberry may refer to the native species Vaccinium oxycoccos, while in North America, cranberry may refer to Vaccinium macrocarpon. Vaccinium oxycoccos is cultivated in central and northern Europe, while Vaccinium macrocarpon is cultivated throughout the northern United States, Canada and Chile. In some methods of classification, Oxycoccus is regarded as a genus in its own right. Cranberries can be found in acidic bogs throughout the cooler regions of the Northern Hemisphere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ericaceae</span> Heather family of flowering plants

The Ericaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with c. 4250 known species spread across 124 genera, making it the 14th most species-rich family of flowering plants. The many well known and economically important members of the Ericaceae include the cranberry, blueberry, huckleberry, rhododendron, and various common heaths and heathers.

<i>Vaccinium</i> Genus of berry-producing shrubs in the heath family

Vaccinium is a common and widespread genus of shrubs or dwarf shrubs in the heath family (Ericaceae). The fruits of many species are eaten by humans and some are of commercial importance, including the cranberry, blueberry, bilberry (whortleberry), lingonberry (cowberry), and huckleberry. Like many other ericaceous plants, they are generally restricted to acidic soils.

<i>Vaccinium virgatum</i> Berry and plant

Vaccinium virgatum is a species of blueberry native to the Southeastern United States, from North Carolina south to Florida and west to Texas.

<i>Vaccinium erythrocarpum</i> Species of cranberry

Vaccinium erythrocarpum, commonly known as southern mountain cranberry or bearberry, more rarely as mountain blueberry or dingleberry, is a deciduous flowering shrub native to the Southeastern United States.

<i>Vaccinium angustifolium</i> Berry and plant

Vaccinium angustifolium, commonly known as the wild lowbush blueberry, is a species of blueberry native to eastern and central Canada and the northeastern United States, growing as far south as the Great Smoky Mountains and west to the Great Lakes region. Vaccinium angustifolium is the most common species of the commercially used wild blueberries and is considered the "low sweet" berry.

<i>Vaccinium corymbosum</i> Species of plant

Vaccinium corymbosum, the northern highbush blueberry, is a North American species of blueberry which has become a food crop of significant economic importance. It is native to eastern Canada and the eastern and southern United States, from Ontario east to Nova Scotia and south as far as Florida and eastern Texas. It is also naturalized in other places: Europe, Japan, New Zealand, the Pacific Northwest of North America, etc. Other common names include blue huckleberry, tall huckleberry, swamp huckleberry, high blueberry, and swamp blueberry.

<i>Vaccinium darrowii</i> Berry and plant

Vaccinium darrowii, with the common names Darrow's blueberry, evergreen blueberry, scrub blueberry, is a species of Vaccinium in the blueberry group.

<i>Ilex decidua</i> Species of holly

Ilex decidua is a species of holly native to the United States.

<i>Vaccinium cespitosum</i> Berry and plant

Vaccinium cespitosum, known as the dwarf bilberry, dwarf blueberry, or dwarf huckleberry, is a species of flowering shrub in the genus Vaccinium, which includes blueberries, huckleberries, and cranberries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blueberry</span> Section of plants

Blueberry is a widely distributed and widespread group of perennial flowering plant with blue or purple berries. They are classified in the section Cyanococcus within the genus Vaccinium. Vaccinium also includes cranberries, bilberries, huckleberries and Madeira blueberries. Commercial blueberries—both wild (lowbush) and cultivated (highbush)—are all native to North America. The highbush varieties were introduced into Europe during the 1930s.

<i>Acrobasis vaccinii</i> Species of moth

Acrobasis vaccinii, the cranberry fruitworm, is a moth of the family Pyralidae described by Charles Valentine Riley in 1884. It is found in North America from Nova Scotia to Florida and from Wisconsin to Texas, it is introduced in the state of Washington.

<i>Peltandra virginica</i> Species of aquatic plant

Peltandra virginica is a plant of the arum family known as green arrow arum and tuckahoe. It is widely distributed in wetlands in the eastern United States, as well as in Quebec, Ontario, and Cuba. It is common in central Florida including the Everglades and along the Gulf Coast. Its rhizomes are tolerant to low oxygen levels found in wetland soils. It can be found elsewhere in North America as an introduced species and often an invasive plant.

<i>Ribes roezlii</i> Species of flowering plant

Ribes roezlii is a North American species of gooseberry known by the common name Sierra gooseberry.

<i>Vaccinium membranaceum</i> Species of plant

Vaccinium membranaceum is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae, known by the common names thinleaf huckleberry, tall huckleberry, big huckleberry, mountain huckleberry, square-twig blueberry, and ambiguously as "black huckleberry".

<i>Gaylussacia dumosa</i> Berry and plant

Gaylussacia dumosa is a species of flowering plant in the heath family known by the common names dwarf huckleberry, bush huckleberry, and gopherberry. It is native to eastern North America from Newfoundland to Louisiana and Florida. It occurs along the coastal plain and in the mountains.

<i>Gaylussacia frondosa</i> Berry and plant

Gaylussacia frondosa is a species of flowering plant in the heath family known by the common names dangleberry and blue huckleberry. It is native to the eastern United States, where it occurs from New Hampshire to South Carolina.

<i>Vaccinium myrsinites</i> Berry and plant

Vaccinium myrsinites is a species of flowering plant in the heath family known by the common name shiny blueberry. It is native to the southeastern United States from Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida. It may occur as far west as Louisiana.

<i>Vaccinium pallidum</i> Berry and plant

Vaccinium pallidum is a species of flowering plant in the heath family known by the common names hillside blueberry, Blue Ridge blueberry, late lowbush blueberry, and early lowbush blueberry. It is native to central Canada (Ontario) and the central and eastern United States plus the Ozarks of Missouri, Arkansas, southeastern Kansas and eastern Oklahoma.

<i>Vaccinium praestans</i> Species of shrub

Vaccinium praestans, the Kamchatka bilberry, is a perennial shrub in the family Ericaceae, which includes species like cranberries, blueberries, and huckleberries. In Russia this plant is known as the Klopovka, or stink-bug berry, due to its distinct, potent scent, resembling that of a secretion produced by bugs of Heteroptera genus. The plant is native to Kamchatka but can be found in North America to Eastern Asia. Mostly growing in the wild, it is also enjoyed as an ornamental plant, most commonly in Japan, where it is used to decorate home gardens. Like many other species in the family Ericaceae, its berries are edible.

References

  1. "Vaccinium stamineum". NatureServe Explorer. NatureServe. Retrieved 2018-09-23.
  2. 1 2 Flora of North America, Vaccinium stamineum Linnaeus, 1753. Deerberry, southern gooseberry
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Hill, S. R. Conservation Assessment for Deerberry (Vaccinium stamineum). United States Department of Agriculture, National Forest Service, Eastern Region. December 31, 2002.
  4. "Vaccinium stamineum". Germplasm Resources Information Network . Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture . Retrieved 10 January 2018.
  5. Biota of North America Program 2014 county distribution map
  6. 1 2 Cane, J. H., et al. (1985). Pollination ecology of Vaccinium stamineum (Ericaceae: Vaccinioideae). American Journal of Botany 72(1), 135-42.
  7. "Discover Life -- CUIC_ENT00021826". www.discoverlife.org. Retrieved 2024-04-11.
  8. Ballington, J. R. (1996). The Deerberry (Vaccinium stamineum L. Vaccinium Section Polycodium (Raf.) Sleumer) a potential new small fruit crop. Journal of Small Fruit & Viticulture 3(2-3), 21-28.
  9. Wang SY, Feng R, Bowman L, Lu Y, Ballington JR, Ding M. Antioxidant activity of Vaccinium stamineum: exhibition of anticancer capability in human lung and leukemia cells. Planta Med. 2007 May;73(5):451-60. doi: 10.1055/s-2007-967164. Epub 2007 Mar 29. PMID 17394101.
  10. Cranberry. Drugs.com. Retrieved on 6 Mar. 2023. "Controversy exists over cranberry as a risk factor for the formation of calcium oxalate kidney stones, and the use of cranberry products in individuals with a history of nephrolithiasis probably should be avoided. A small study observed that consumption of 1 L/day of cranberry juice significantly increases the relative saturation ratio of calcium oxalate compared to drinking water similarly for subjects with and without a medical history of calcium oxalate stone formation...The genus Vaccinium also includes the blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium Ait.), deerberry (Vaccinium stamineum L.)..."