Though blueberries are a treat widely available in stores , gaga blueberries abound in the forests of the easterly United States and seem to be even tasty when they ’re discover while on the trail . blow for their antioxidant properties , blueberries are also an important food for wildlife . In the home garden , blueberry Bush cater twelvemonth - round interest with their spring flowers , summer fruit , pin color and wintertime bark .
About the Blueberry Shrub Family
The blueberry bush and its congener are one of the most common shrubs in the North American continent , come as 43 separate coinage across all 48 conterminous states , Alaska , Canada , Mexico and even in Hawaii . The cranberry , lingonberry , bilberry and huckleberry are all members of the blueberry kinsfolk . Fruits from all of these plant are eatable by humans .
The most widely circularise and well recognisable of this category of shrubs are the highbush and lowbush blueberry bush .
Highbush Blueberry
Vaccinium corymbosum , or highbush blueberry bush , is the most recognizable potpourri , as it and many of its cultivars are widely available for leverage in commercial-grade nurseries , and the yield are sold by the pint in grocery stores . The highbush blueberry ’s native range stretches across most of the North American continent from Alaska , throughout Canada and into Maine , south to Florida and Texas and west as far as Colorado .
The dark , shiny green leaves of the highbush blueberry are 1 1/2 to 3 inch long , oval - shaped with a point , and have a tough , leathery texture . On the twig , leaves grow alternately , or spaced out along the branch . The margins of the folio are politic and not serrate . In the fall , the leaves of the highbush blueberry turn a ardent redness , which make the shrub stand out where it spring up as an understory industrial plant in boggy pine timber .
Highbush Flowers and Fruits
In the spring , clean , doorbell - shape flowers appear which eventually turn into clusters of blue blue fruits , each of which are between 5 and 10 millimetre across . Ripe fruits have a faint whitish " blossom , " or powdery sheen that vanish when the yield are rubbed or contuse .
Lowbush Blueberry
As its name connote , the lowbush blueberry , or Vaccinium angustifolium , is the much short congener of the highbush , growing to only 2 metrical foot where its full cousin can reach 15 foot in height .
The leaves of the lowbush blueberry are similar but have distinct divergence . Also a tough , shiny cat valium , the shrub ’s leave-taking grow only from 1 1/2 to 2 inches prospicient and though indicate are somewhat more rounded along the edge . Leaves are arrange alternately but the margins of the leafage have hunky-dory serrations .
The lowbush blueberry ’s leave also wrick a bright redness in the autumn months .
Lowbush Flowers and Fruits
The flower and fruits are much like the highbush blueberry , though smaller . White , bell - determine blossom appear in the spring , and the fruits are quite diminutive , reaching only 5 to 8 mm across . The plant grow across much of the same range as the highbush blueberry bush , though it does not occur south of Tennessee or Dame Rebecca West of Manitoba , Canada .
The lowbush blueberry bush grows on rocky outcropping as well as in bogs and swamps .
