Ericaceae

The Ericaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acid and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with roughly 4000 species spread across 126 genera, making it the 14th-most-speciose family of flowering plants. The many well-known and economically important members of the Ericaceae include the cranberry, blueberry, huckleberry, rhododendron (including azaleas), and various common heaths and heathers (Erica, Cassiope, Daboecia, and Calluna for example).

Description

The Ericaceae contain a morphologically diverse range of taxa, including herbs, dwarf shrubs, shrubs, and trees. Their leaves are usually alternate or whorled, simple and without stipules. Their flowers are hermaphrodite and show considerable variability. The petals are often fused (sympetalous) with shapes ranging from narrowly tubular to funnelform or widely bowl-shaped. The corollas are usually radially symmetrical (actinomorphic), but many flowers of the genus Rhododendron are somewhat bilaterally symmetrical (zygomorphic).

Vaccinium parvifolium

Vaccinium parvifolium, the red huckleberry, is a species of Vaccinium native to western North America, where it is common in forests from southeastern Alaska and British Columbia south through western Washington and Oregon to central California.

In the Oregon Coast Range, it is the most common Vaccinium. It occurs mostly at low to middle elevations in soil enriched by decaying wood and on rotten logs, from sea level up to 1,820-metre (6,000 ft).

Description

It is a deciduous shrub growing to 4-metre (13 ft) tall with bright green shoots with an angular cross-section. The leaves are ovate to oblong-elliptic, 9-millimetre (0.35 in) to 30-millimetre (1.2 in) long, and 4-millimetre (0.16 in) to 16-millimetre (0.63 in) wide, with an entire margin.

The flowers are yellow-white to pinkish-white with pink, decumbent bell-shaped 4-millimetre (0.16 in) to 5-millimetre (0.20 in) long.

The fruit is an edible red to orange berry 6-millimetre (0.24 in) to 10-millimetre (0.39 in) in diameter.