Photo: Mason Brock, Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Box Huckleberry

Gaylussacia brachycera

Also called Vaccinium brachycerum.

A foot-high evergreen ground cover with glossy leaves, pink-white bells in May and sweet blue berries, from a shrub whose wild patches live for centuries.

RareEvergreenTolerates shadeEdible

Type: Shrub
Mature height: 1–2 ft
USDA zones: 5–8
Growth rate: Slow
Sun: Part, Shade
Soil moisture: Dry, Average
Grows wild in: The forest understory, dry uplands, the Appalachians and sandy barrens
Native range: 8 states, north to Pennsylvania, south to North Carolina and west to Tennessee
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Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia
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Box huckleberry is a dwarf evergreen shrub of Appalachian and Mid-Atlantic woods, and each wild patch is usually a single plant spreading by underground stems. Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina list it as endangered, and NatureServe ranks it vulnerable. A patch cannot pollinate itself, so wild patches almost never set seed and no wild seedling is known. Unlike our black huckleberry and dangleberry, it keeps its leaves all winter, and they carry no resin dots. Use it as a slow evergreen carpet under pines, rhododendrons or mountain laurel on acid ground.

Size, growth and what to expect

Box huckleberry grows slowly, and our growth estimator treats it as slow. It stands about a foot tall, 6 to 18 inches, and its underground stems push the patch outward about 6 inches a year. One Pennsylvania patch nearly 1,000 feet across proved to be a single plant, perhaps 1,000 to 2,000 years old.

Small white to pink bells hang in clusters of two to five in May and early June. The light blue berries are juicy and sweet, and they ripen by mid-August. The glossy leaves turn bronze to reddish purple in winter.

It grows wild in scattered patches from Pennsylvania and Delaware south to Tennessee, mostly in the Appalachians, with a few on the coastal plain and one in the North Carolina Piedmont. Its home is acid, sandy or shaly soil on wooded slopes, often facing north, with pines and mountain laurel.

How to grow Box Huckleberry

Box huckleberry grows in part shade or shade, as under pines and oaks. In full sun its leaves turn pale and scorch. It needs a loose, acid soil that drains well and holds plenty of organic matter. Set plants 2 feet apart and keep them 2 feet from a wall. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them in spring or fall, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and mulch with pine needles or oak leaves. Wild seed germinates poorly, and its seedlings are weak. Give the cleaned seed a month warm and damp, then two months in the refrigerator. Sow it in a damp peat and sand mix. Seed treated this way has come up at about 80 percent.

Water weekly through the first two summers while the runners take hold. The patch widens only about 6 inches a year, so weed around it until it closes over. It needs no pruning.

Each flower carries both male and female parts. Box huckleberry cannot set seed with its own pollen, and most wild patches are one plant, so plant two or more seedlings from different parents for berries. No serious pests or diseases trouble it.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

Sources (8)

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