Photo: Ciftonia, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Woolly Huckleberry

Gaylussacia mosieri

Also called woolly-berry, hirsute huckleberry.

A bog huckleberry of the Gulf coast whose twigs, flowers and sweet black berries all bristle with long, glandular hairs.

Wildlife valueEdibleFall colorTolerates wet soil

Type: Shrub
Mature height: 1–3 ft
USDA zones: 8–9
Growth rate: Slow
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Average, Wet
Grows wild in: Sandy barrens, swamps and wet flats
Native range: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi Also recorded in 1 other state, outside its native range. See what is native in your state

Hardiness zones Find your zone by ZIP code

Woolly huckleberry is a low huckleberry of the eastern Gulf coastal plain, from the Florida panhandle and southern Georgia west to Louisiana. It grows in pitcher plant bogs, seepage slopes and wet pine savannas, where it spreads by underground stems into colonies. Long glandular hairs cover its twigs, flower stalks and even its fruit, which sets it apart from its relatives. Unlike our black huckleberry of dry uplands, it wants wet, sunny ground. Use it as a backdrop to a bog garden or along a moist woodland edge, where birds come for its summer berries.

Size, growth and what to expect

No source rates its growth, so our growth estimator treats it as slow, like our black huckleberry, about a foot a year. It stands 1 to 3 feet tall, rarely 5, and spreads by underground stems into small to large colonies.

White or pinkish bells hang four to eight together from March into May. The glossy black berries are juicy and sweet, a quarter to a third of an inch across, and covered with glandular hairs. Birds and mammals eat them. The leaves color in fall.

It grows wild on the eastern Gulf coastal plain in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. Its home is pitcher plant bogs, hillside seepage bogs, wet pine savannas and flatwoods, and the edges of bayheads. USDA PLANTS also records it in South Carolina, outside the range the floras give.

How to grow Woolly Huckleberry

Woolly huckleberry grows best in full sun or part sun. It wants a sandy, acid soil that stays moist, and it takes brief flooding. It will not take salt. Set plants 3 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 dormant, 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, clear of the stems. Treat it like black huckleberry seed, warm and damp for a month and then cool for two months, around 45 to 50 degrees. Then sow it in a damp peat and sand mix.

Keep the soil moist through the first two summers. It spreads by underground stems into a colony. It needs no pruning.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, and native bees pollinate it. Its relatives box huckleberry and black huckleberry set little or no fruit with their own pollen, so plant two or more woolly huckleberries from different parents for berries.

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

Sources (8)

Plan the planting