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Vaccinium corymbosum
Also called New Jersey blueberry, Smallflower blueberry, Southern blueberry, Smooth Highbush Blueberry, Blueberry, Swamp Blueberry, American Blueberry
Highbush blueberry is a deciduous shrub native to eastern North America, grown for its sweet blue-black berries and as an ornamental hedge. It needs very acidic soil (pH 4.5 to 5.5) and moist conditions to thrive.
Vaccinium corymbosum is a North American species of blueberry with several common names, including highbush blueberry and rabbiteye blueberry.
The species became commonly cultivated as a fresh fruit crop in the 20th century, with dozens of commercial cultivars. It can be used as an ornamental hedge as well a food source for humans and wildlife.
Many wild species of Vaccinium are thought to have been cultivated by Native Americans for thousands of years, with intentional crop burnings in northeastern areas being apparent from archeological evidence. V. corymbosum, being one of the species likely used by these peoples, was later studied and domesticated in 1908 by Elizabeth Coleman White and Frederick Vernon Coville. It became commonly cultivated as a fresh fruit crop in the 20th century and the most common commercially grown blueberry in North America.
It is also cultivated as an ornamental plant for home and wildlife gardens and natural landscaping projects. The soil pH must be very acidic (4.5 to 5.5). It can be used as an ornamental hedge.
It is native to eastern Canada and the eastern and southern United States, from Ontario east to Nova Scotia and south as far as Florida and eastern Texas. It is also naturalized in other places, including Europe, Japan, New Zealand, and the North American Pacific Northwest.
The edible berries were collected and used in Native American cuisine in areas where V. corymbosum grew natively.
Lowbush blueberry · Farkleberry · Northern blueberry · Sea bilberry · New Jersey blueberry · Dwarf bilberry · Creeping blueberry · Azorean Bilberry · Darrow's blueberry · Elliott's blueberry · Southern mountain cranberry · Andean blueberry
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Vaccinium corymbosum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
