Vaccinium erythrocarpum Michx.

A deciduous shrub, from 3 to 6 ft high, with downy young branches. Leaves short-stalked, ovate or ovate lance-shaped, taper-pointed, 1 to 3 in. long, scarcely half as wide, bristle-toothed, tinged with red and slightly hairy when young. Flowers produced in June singly on slender pendulous stalks, about 1⁄2 in. long, from the axils of the young leaves. Corolla pale red, deeply four-lobed; the lobes narrow, 1⁄3 in. long, and curled back, leaving the long anthers exposed and standing close together in a sort of column. Berries acid, roundish, 1⁄4 in. wide, turning red, then purplish black. Bot. Mag., t. 7413.

Native of the mountains of the southeastern United States; introduced in 1806 by Loddiges of Hackney, but never common. It is a pretty shrub and of peculiar interest in forming a connecting link between Vaccinium and Oxyoccus (the true cranberries). It has the shrubby habit of the former, but the flower structure and arrangement of the latter. When first introduced it was hoped that it might prove of value as a fruiting bush, but like the rest of the imported species, it has never borne fruit freely enough to count for much.