dwarf huckleberry

Photo: magnolia1000 — CC BY 2.0 · source

Survives zone 5 through 8

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Blueberry sweet; lingonberry/cranberry tart (cook); bilberry intense but tiny.

Hardiness

Zone 5–8

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

July–Sept

Mature size

Low deciduous shrub 15–50 cm, colonial by rhizome

Light

Partial to full sun

Soil pH

4.0–5.5 — ⚠ STRICTLY ACID-LOVING (calcifuge). Will die on alkaline soil; use ericaceous compost + rainwater

Environment

Sandy heath

Native range

Eastern North America — Newfoundland and the Canadian Maritimes south along the coastal plain to Florida and west to Mississippi; pine barrens, bogs and sandy acid woods.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

2–3 yrs

Growth speed

5–10 cm/year — slow, staying low and spreading by rhizome.

Spacing

90 cm (35 in) apart — about 1.2 per m² (1.1 per 10 sq ft)

Leaf shape

Alternate, small, firm and shining, resin-dotted like the rest of the genus, carried on twigs that are noticeably covered in short curly hairs.

Root system

Shallow and strongly rhizomatous, spreading underground to form patches and knitting the surface well enough to hold thin soil on slopes.

Fruit description

Round black berries about 8–10 mm across, sweet but rather insipid compared with black huckleberry, each holding the genus's 10 hard nutlets.

Propagation

Division of rooted rhizome pieces is much the easiest and most reliable route. Seed is short-lived, slow and awkward, needing moist cold stratification and still germinating erratically; softwood cuttings taken in the growing season are an intermediate option.

Pollination

Self-fertile, so one bush will crop, but fruit set is distinctly better with a second plant nearby. Pollinated mainly by bees working the small urn-shaped flowers, with occasional flies and butterflies.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.