BLUEBERRY (Vaccinium), the name given in North America to certain widely branching shrubs of the heath or huckleberry family, Ericaceae or V acciniaceae, prized for their sweet, edible fruits. The British species of the genus are called bilberries (q.v.). The most important North American forms are the high or swamp blueberry of the North (V . corymbosum), 4 ft. to 12 ft. high, native to bogs and swamps from Maine and Que bec to Minnesota and southward, the fruit blue with a thick bloom; the high or swamp blueberry of the South (V . virgatum), 2 ft. to 12 ft. high, found in swamps and pine barrens from Vir ginia to Florida, the fruit black with little bloom; the high black blueberry (V. atrococcum), in range and other respects similar to V . corymbosum except that the fruit is black and shiny; the low, sweet or early blueberry (V . pennsylvanicum), ft. to 2 ft. high, supplying the bulk of the blueberries of the market, abun dant on pine barrens, dry heaths and mountain lands from New foundland to Saskatchewan and south to Virginia and Illinois, fruit blue-black or red, with or without a bloom; the Canadian blueberry (V . canadense), similar in size and range to V. penn sylvanicum, but with more acid, smaller and later fruits ; and the late low blueberry (V. vacillans), ft. to 3 ft. high, of sandy or rocky places from Maine to Wisconsin and south to Georgia and Kansas, the fruit blue with a heavy bloom.
Blueberries grow only in acid soils and must have on their roots a certain fungus which seems to be necessary to their processes of nutrition. Some species succeed on upland and others on marsh or bog land, but there must be no standing water on their roots in summer. In southern Alabama and northern Florida hundreds of acres of selected native plants are grown on upland soils. The high blueberry (V . corymbosum) from selected native plants and seedlings in plant breeding is grown com mercially in New Jersey. Several of these seedlings have been named; the largest fruited bear berries about -1 in. in diameter.
(C. P. C.)