# Dangleberry (Gaylussacia frondosa)

> A huckleberry for sandy, acid ground, damp or dry, that spreads into thickets hung with sweet blue berries in summer and turns orange in fall.

Also called blue huckleberry, Vaccinium frondosum. Category: Nut & Fruit Trees. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/dangleberry/

![Dangleberry (Gaylussacia frondosa) in a hand-colored plate, a leafy branch with small bells on long stalks](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/dangleberry-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Henry C. Andrews, Public domain · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_botanist's_repository%2C_for_new_and_rare_plants_%28Pl._140%29_%289321879332%29.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Shrub
- Mature height: 2 to 6 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 5 to 9
- Grows wild in: Sandy barrens, dry uplands, the forest understory, swamps and wet flats, old fields and edges
- Native range: 18 states and the District of Columbia, north to New Hampshire, south to Georgia and west to Mississippi (Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia)
- Sun: Full, Part
- Soil moisture: Average, Wet, Dry
- Growth rate: Slow
- Traits: Edible, Wildlife value, Tolerates wet soil, Drought tolerant, Fall color
- Sold as: Saplings, Seed

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

## Availability

Not yet priced online. Ask at captain@bluewhaletrees.com or leave an email on the web page to be told when it is listed.

## Notes

Dangleberry is a huckleberry of the eastern Coastal Plain, named for berries that hang on thread-thin stalks a third of an inch to an inch long. They are blue with a whitish bloom, where those of our black huckleberry are black, and they are sweet and juicy. Each holds about ten small, hard seeds, where a blueberry holds many tiny ones. The shrub is common in pine barrens and flatwoods but rarely dominant there. Plant it along a sunny woodland edge or near a pond on acid, sandy ground, and let it spread into a berry thicket.

## Size, growth and what to expect

Dangleberry grows slowly, about a foot a year in our growth estimator. It makes a slender, freely branched shrub of 2 to 6 feet and 2 to 5 feet across, and it spreads into colonies. Its underground stems run in the top 2 inches of soil and send up shoots from 3 inches to 6 feet apart.

Small greenish white to pink bells hang two to four together on long, slender stalks from March to June. The berries ripen from June into August, a quarter to a third of an inch across. Wild turkeys, bobwhite, mourning doves, catbirds and scarlet tanagers eat them. Black bears, gray foxes, raccoons and fox squirrels take them too. It is also a host plant of Henry's elfin butterfly.

It grows wild from southern New Hampshire to South Carolina, mostly on the Atlantic Coastal Plain and less often on the Piedmont. Its home is sandy pine barrens and flatwoods, dry oak woods, and the edges of shrub swamps and pocosins.

## How to grow Dangleberry

Dangleberry is most productive in full sun, and it takes the part shade of open pine and oak woods. It needs an acid, sandy soil low in nutrients, pH 3.8 to 5.5, and it will not take lime. It thrives in damp soil that drains, takes an occasional wet spell and tolerates drought. Set plants 3 feet apart and keep them 3 feet from a wall. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, 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 straw or oak leaves, clear of the stems. Treat the seed like black huckleberry seed, warm and damp for a month and then cool for two, around 45 to 50 degrees. Sow it on the surface of a damp peat and sand mix. Black huckleberry seed comes up slowly and sparsely this way.

Water weekly through the first summer if rain is short, then only in a long drought. Deer and rabbits browse it only lightly. It needs no fertilizer and little pruning. If an old colony bears poorly, cut it to the ground in late winter, and it sprouts back from its underground stems.

Its flowers cannot pollinate themselves and depend on bumblebees and small bees. Its relatives set more fruit with pollen from another plant, so plant two or more seedlings from different parents. It has no serious pests or diseases. In burned pine woods it bore no fruit the first year after the fire and the most in the third.

## Sources

- [USDA Fire Effects Information System: Gaylussacia frondosa, Carey 1994, common name changed to blue huckleberry on 11 July 2018](https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/shrub/gayfro/all.html)
- [Flora of North America, vol. 8: Gaylussacia frondosa](http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=250065726)
- [NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: Gaylussacia frondosa](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/gaylussacia-frondosa/)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Gaylussacia frondosa](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=GAFR2)
- [Native Plant Trust, Garden Plant Finder: Gaylussacia frondosa](https://plantfinder.nativeplanttrust.org/plant/Gaylussacia-frondosa)
- [Go Botany, Native Plant Trust: Gaylussacia frondosa](https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/gaylussacia/frondosa/)
- [Trees and Shrubs Online: Gaylussacia frondosa, from Bean](https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/gaylussacia/gaylussacia-frondosa/)
- [USDA PLANTS: Gaylussacia frondosa, profile and characteristics](https://plants.usda.gov/plant-profile/GAFR2)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (2008), Gaylussacia chapter, on black huckleberry, the one species it treats](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Gaylussacia.pdf)
- [USDA Forest Service Native Plant Network: Kujawski and Davis 2002, Propagation protocol for production of container (plug) Gaylussacia baccata plants, 1 gal container, USDA NRCS Norman A. Berg National Plant Materials Center, Beltsville, Maryland](https://NativePlantNetwork.org)
- [Rathcke 1988, Interactions for pollination among coflowering shrubs, Ecology 69: 446-457](https://doi.org/10.2307/1940443)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Gaylussacia frondosa](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.138880/Gaylussacia_frondosa)
- [Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, Native Plant Center: Gaylussacia frondosa](https://www.allianceforthebay.org/plants/gaylussacia-frondosa/)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [The habitat around a tree is part of the tree](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/habitat-around-a-tree/index.html.md)
- [Invasive vines and shrubs are what is killing your woods](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/invasive-vines-and-shrubs/index.html.md)
- [Native trees and shrubs for butterflies and moths: host plants first, nectar second](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-butterflies-and-moths/index.html.md)

## Related

- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Dangleberry, add ?species=dangleberry with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address, for example ?species=dangleberry&zone=5&sun=part&moisture=average.
- [Companion species for Dangleberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=dangleberry): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate itself runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/#species=dangleberry
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Dangleberry is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/#species=dangleberry
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Dangleberry needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the planner runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/#plants=dangleberry:2
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Dangleberry flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species.