This section is from the book "An Illustrated Flora Of The Northern United States, Canada And The British Possessions Vol2", by Nathaniel Lord Britton, Addison Brown. Also available from Amazon: An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions. 3 Volume Set..
[?Adnaria Raf. Fl. Ludov. 56. 1817]
[Decamerium Nutt. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. II. 8: 259. 1843.]
Branching shrubs, with alternate entire or serrate leaves, and small white or pink flowers in lateral bra'cted racemes. Pedicels mostly 2-bracteolate. Calyx-tube short, obconic, or turbinate, the limb 5-lobed or 5-toothed, persistent. Corolla urn-shaped, or tubular-campanu-late, the tube terete or 5-angled, the limb 5-lobed, the lobes erect or recurved. Stamens 10, equal, usually included; filaments short and distinct; anther-sacs tapering upward into tubes, awnless, opening by terminal pores or chinks. Fruit a berry-like drupe with 10 seed-like nutlets, each containing a single seed. [Named for the celebrated chemist, Gay-Lussac]
About 40 American species. Besides the following, another occurs in the southern Alleghenies. Type species: Gaylussacia buxifolia H.B.K.
Leaves pale and glaucous beneath, resinous; fruit blue with a bloom. | 1. | G. frondosa. |
Leaves green both sides, resinous; fruit black, or sometimes blue. | ||
Bracts small, deciduous, mostly shorter than the pedicels. | 2. | G. baccata. |
Bracts oval, large, persistent, longer than the pedicels. | 3. | G. dumosa. |
Leaves thick, evergreen, serrate, not resinous; bracts scale-like. | 4. | G. brdchycera. |
Fig. 3252
Vaccinium frondosum L. Sp. PI. 351. 1753.
G. frondosa T. & G.; Torr. Fl. N. Y. 1: 449. 1843.
An erect shrub, 2°-4° high, with numerous spreading or ascending slender gray branches. Leaves oval to obovate, obtuse or retuse, entire, \\'-2\' long when mature, usually thin, the lower surface glabrous or pubescent, pale or glaucous, and sprinkled with resinous globules, the upper surface green, usually glabrous; petioles about 1" long; flowers few, nodding, greenish pink in loose racemes; bracts linear-oblong, shorter than the filiform mostly 2-bracteolate pedicels, deciduous; corolla globose-campanulate, \\" long; filaments glabrous, shorter than the anthers; fruit globose, dark blue with a glaucous bloom, about 4" in diameter, sweet.
In moist woods, New Hampshire to Virginia, Alabama, Ohio and Louisiana. Blue whortleberry. May-June. Fruit ripe July-Aug.
Gaylussacia ursina CM. A. Curtis) T. & G.. with acuminate leaves green on both sides and black fruit, native of the southern Alleghanies, is erroneously recorded from Kentucky.
 
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