Vaccinium fuscatum Aiton

Black Blueberry; Hairy Blueberry; Black Highbush Blueberry

Shrub

Perennial

Vascular

Black Highbush Blueberry is a native deciduous shrub in the Heath family (Ericaceae). It can be found throughout most of Alabama. Black Highbush Blueberry occurs in acidic, mesic to wet pine or mixed pine/hardwood forests, often on sandy soils. It is a deciduous multi-trunked shrub reaching 8-12 feet in height. It often suckers from the roots, forming clones. Young twigs are green and pubescent. The bark on older stems is light tan to reddish-brown in color, thin, and peels in strips or plates. Leaves are alternate, petiolate, elliptic to ovate in outline, with entire or glandular toothed margins. The leaves are glabrous or slightly pubescent on the upper surface and pubescent on the lower surface, at least along the midrib and major veins. The leaves are not glaucous underneath, and turn red to orange before falling in the autumn. Flowers are produced in axillary racemes or fascicles, usually after the leaves have emerged. The flowers are urceolate to cylindrical, white to pinkish in color, and glabrous. The fruit is a black berry. The edible fruit are large and sweet, and consumed by humans and a variety of wildlife. Black Highbush Blueberry is sometimes lumped with Smooth Highbush Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum Linnaeus). Smooth Highbush Blueberry differs in having glabrous leaves that are often glaucous below, and glaucous blueish colored fruit. Black Highbush Blueberry is one parent of many of the cultivated varieties of blueberries.—A. Diamond

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Native

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