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Gaylussacia brachycera (Michx.) A. Gray

Box

Modern name

Gaylussacia brachycera (Michx.) Torr. & A.Gray

Synonyms

Vaccinium brachycerum Michx.; Vaccinium buxifolium Salisb.

A dwarf evergreen shrub 6 to 12 in. high; young stems angled, glabrous or minutely downy. Leaves thick, leathery, oval to ovate, toothed, 13 to 1 in. long, about half as wide, dark glossy green above, paler below, glabrous, very shortly stalked. Flowers produced in May and June in short axillary racemes near the end of the shoot, each flower on a very short stalk. Corolla cylindrical, but contracted at the mouth, 14 in. long, white, faintly striped with red. Fruits blue.

Native of the eastern United States, on the mountains and hills from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia northwards to New Jersey; originally introduced in 1796. It was subsequently quite lost to cultivation but through the agency of the Arnold Arboretum was restored to gardens. It is not common in cultivation, but one of the daintiest of evergreens, forming low, neat patches, resembling to some extent Vaccinium vitis-idaea var. minus. Award of Merit, 1940, when shown by Messrs Marchant.


Genus

Gaylussacia

Other species in the genus