Vaccinium Explained

Vaccinium [1] is a common and widespread genus of shrubs or dwarf shrubs in the heath family (Ericaceae). The fruits of many species are eaten by humans and some are of commercial importance, including the cranberry, blueberry, bilberry (whortleberry), lingonberry (cowberry), and huckleberry. Like many other heath plants, they are generally restricted to acidic soils.

Description

The plant structure varies between species: some trail along the ground, some are dwarf shrubs, and some are larger shrubs perhaps NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 tall. Some tropical species are epiphytic.[2] Stems are usually woody. Flowers are epigynous with fused petals, and have long styles that protrude from their bell-shaped corollas. Stamens have anthers with extended tube-like structures called "awns" through which pollen falls when mature.[3] Inflorescences can be axillary or terminal. The fruit develops from an inferior ovary, and is a four- or five-parted berry; it is usually brightly coloured, often being red or bluish with purple juice. Roots are commonly mycorrhizal, which likely help the plants to access nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus in the acidic, nutrient-poor soils they inhabit.

Taxonomy

The genus was first described scientifically by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. The name Vaccinium was used in classical Latin for a plant, possibly the bilberry or a hyacinth, and may be derived from the Latin bacca, berry, although its ultimate derivation is obscure.[4] [5] It is not the same word as Vaccinum "of or pertaining to cows".[6]

The taxonomy of the genus is complex, and still under investigation. Genetic analyses indicates that the genus Vaccinium is not monophyletic.[7] A number of the Asian species are more closely related to Agapetes than to other Vaccinium species. A second group includes most of Orthaea and Notopora, at least some of Gaylussacia (huckleberry), and a number of species from Vaccinium, such as V. crassifolium. Other parts of Vaccinium form other groups, sometimes together with species of other genera. The taxonomy of Vaccinium can either be resolved by enlarging the genus to include the entirety of the tribe Vaccinieae, or by breaking the genus up into several different genera.

Two fossil seeds of V. minutulum have been extracted from borehole samples of the Middle Miocene freshwater deposits in Nowy Sacz Basin, West Carpathians, Poland.[8]

Subgenera

See main article: List of ''Vaccinium'' species. A classification predating molecular phylogeny divides Vaccinium into subgenera, and several sections:

Subgenus Oxycoccus: The cranberries, with slender, trailing, wiry non-woody shoots and strongly reflexed flower petals. Some botanists treat Oxycoccus as a distinct genus.
Subgenus Vaccinium: All the other species, with thicker, upright woody shoots and bell-shaped flowers

Distribution and habitat

The genus contains about 450 species,[13] which are found mostly in the cooler areas of the Northern Hemisphere, although there are tropical species from areas as widely separated as Madagascar and Hawaii. The genus is distributed worldwide except for Australia and Antarctica, but areas of great Vaccinium diversity include the montane regions of North and South America, as well as Southeast Asia.[14] Species are still being discovered in the Andes.[15]

Plants of this group typically require acidic soils, and as wild plants they live in habitats such as heath, bog and acidic woodland (for example, blueberries under oaks or pines). Blueberry plants are commonly found in oak-heath forests in eastern North America.[16] [17] Vaccinium is found in both successional and stable sites, and is fire-adapted in many regions, withstanding low-intensity burns, and re-sprouting from rhizomes when above-ground tissues are burned off.

Ecology

Vaccinium species are used as food plants by the larvae of a number of Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) species. Berries of North American species nourish a variety of mammals and birds, notably including the grizzly bear.[18]

Cultivation

Blueberries (sect. Cyanococcus) and cranberries (sect. Oxycoccus) are relatively newly cultivated plants, and are largely unchanged from their wild relatives. Genetic breeding of blueberries began around the turn of the 20th century, and was spearheaded by Frederick Coville who performed many cross-breeding trials and produced dozens of new blueberry cultivars.[19] He often tested new cultivars for their flavor, claiming after a long day of tasting that "all blueberries taste the same, and all taste sour."

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Sunset Western Garden Book . 1995 . 606–607.
  2. Book: Vander Kloet, Samuel P. . The Genus Vaccinium in North America . Research Branch, Agriculture Canada . 1988 . Ottawa, Canada.
  3. Palser . Barbara F. . 1961-12-01 . Studies of Floral Morphology in the Ericales. V. Organography and Vascular Anatomy in Several United States Species of the Vacciniaceae . Botanical Gazette . 123 . 2 . 79–111 . 10.1086/336134 . 85148687 . 0006-8071.
  4. Book: Hyam . R. . Pankhurst . R.J. . 1995 . Plants and their names : a concise dictionary . Oxford . Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-866189-4 . amp. p. 515.
  5. Book: Coombes, Allen J. . 1994 . Dictionary of Plant Names . London . Hamlyn Books . 978-0-600-58187-1. p. 187.
  6. Book: Oxford Latin Dictionary . 2000 . P.G.W. Glare . 0-19-864224-5 . 1996.
  7. Phylogenetic relationships within the blueberry tribe (Vaccinieae, Ericaceae) based on sequence data from MATK and nuclear ribosomal ITS regions, with comments on the placement of Satyria . Kathleen A. Kron . E. Ann Powell . J. L. Luteyn . American Journal of Botany . 2002 . 89 . 327–336 . 10.3732/ajb.89.2.327 . 2 . 21669741.
  8. Łańcucka-Środoniowa M.: Macroscopic plant remains from the freshwater Miocene of the Nowy Sącz Basin (West Carpathians, Poland) [Szczątki makroskopowe roślin z miocenu słodkowodnego Kotliny Sądeckiej (Karpaty Zachodnie, Polska)]. Acta Palaeobotanica 1979 20 (1): 3-117.
  9. Web site: GBIF: Vaccinium microcarpum . 2016-10-17.
  10. Web site: Vaccinium pallidum Aiton . www.cas.Vanderbilt.edu . 13 June 2017 . 25 April 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090425082800/http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/species/frame/vapa4.htm . dead.
  11. Web site: Vaccinium stamineum L. . www.cas.Vanderbilt.edu . 13 June 2017 . 25 April 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090425085811/http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/species/frame/vast.htm . dead.
  12. Web site: Lewis and Clark Herbarium - Plants collected by Lewis and Clark . plantsystematics.org. 2019-12-20.
  13. Web site: vaccinium species . 20 August 2016.
  14. Tsutsumi . Chie . May 22, 2011 . The Phylogenetic Positions of Four Endangered Vaccinium Species in Japan . Bulletin of the National Museum of Nature and Science . 37 . 79–86.
  15. Pedraza-Peñalosa . Paola . Luteyn . James L. . 2011-06-01 . Andean Vaccinium (Ericaceae: Vaccinieae): Seven new species from South America . Brittonia . en . 63 . 2 . 257–275 . 10.1007/s12228-010-9164-y . 2011Britt..63..257P . 40949853 . 1938-436X.
  16. Web site: The Natural Communities of Virginia Classification of Ecological Community Groups (Version 2.3), Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, 2010 . Virginia.gov . 13 June 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110105224138/http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural_heritage/ncTIIIe.shtml . 5 January 2011 . dead . dmy-all.
  17. Book: Schafale, M. P. . amp . Weakley, A. S. . 1990 . Classification of the natural communities of North Carolina: third approximation . North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation.
  18. Mace, R. D., & Jonkel, C. J. . 1986 . Local food habits of the grizzly bear in Montana . Bears: Their Biology and Management . 6 . 105–110 . 10.2307/3872813 . 3872813.
  19. Book: Coville, F. V. . Experiments in Blueberry Culture . US Government Printing Office . 1910.

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