Gaylussacia brachycera: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 18:21, 21 June 2011
| Box huckleberry | |
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| Box huckleberry in bloom | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | |
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| Order: | |
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| Genus: | |
| Species: | G. brachycera
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| Binomial name | |
| Gaylussacia brachycera | |
| Synonyms | |
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Vaccinium buxifolium Michx. | |
Box Huckleberry (Gaylussacia brachycera) is a low North American shrub related to the blueberry. A relict species predating the last ice age, box huckleberry is self-sterile, and is found in isolated colonies which reproduce clonally by extending roots. One colony in Pennsylvania has been estimated to be between 5,000 and 13,000 years old; if the latter, it would be the second oldest known organism in the world,[2] eclipsed only by Lomatia tasmanica. The plant takes its name from its distinctive leaves, which resemble those of the boxwood rather than other huckleberries.[3]
Description
Box huckleberry is a low shrub, 6 to 8 inches (150 to 200 mm) tall.[4] Its leaves resemble those of boxwood (hence its name). About 1 inch (2.5 cm) long and oval-shaped,[5] they are glossy and minutely toothed,[3] turning red in winter.[4] The evergreen leaves, lacking resin glands, are in sharp contrast to other species of Gaylussacia.[6] Box huckleberry flowers in May and June.[5] The flowers are urn-shaped and white, sometimes tinged with pink. Like other huckleberries, the flowers appear on a raceme springing from the leaf axils.[4] Its fruit consists of blue berries borne on short pedicels,[7] which appear in July and August.[5]
Taxonomy
Andre Michaux, who discovered box huckleberry in 1796, originally named it Vaccinium buxifolium. It was referred to as V. brachycerum by Sims and Lewis in 1806, but V. buxifolium remained the prevailing name until 1848. At this time, a rediscovery of the plant (which had not been observed since 1805), allowed Asa Gray to classify it as G. brachycera.[8] (Gaylussacia was not recognized as a genus separate from Vaccinium until 1819.[9]) Small assigned the species to a monotypic genus, Buxella brachycera, in 1933, but this was condemned on the grounds of both nomenclatural and "phyletic unsoundness".[10] More recently, phylogenetic studies in 2002 suggested that the monophyly of G. brachycera with the remainder of Gaylussacia is "equivocal," and further analysis of Vaccinium might result in G. brachycera being returned to that genus.[11]
Distribution and habitat
About 100 separate stations for box huckleberry have been documented in the scientific literature.[5] Most of them fall within the Appalachian Mountains, ranging from central Pennsylvania in the north to eastern Tennessee in the south. However, the specimens located in Maryland and Delaware were found on the Atlantic Coastal Plain,[8] and the recently discovered North Carolina station is in the Piedmont. Box huckleberry prefers dry, acidic soils, including duff, and partial shade.[12] Locations on wooded slopes tend to face north;[6] however, the New Bloomfield site faces west. At one of the Delaware sites, a small portion of the colony extended to the wet margin of a marsh, but most was located on dry, sandy soil upslope.[13]
Ecology
Box huckleberry is self-sterile, so single plants cannot reproduce sexually. Instead, they form colonies which spread by vegetative reproduction along rootstocks.[13] A colony of G. brachycera at Losh Run, Pennsylvania was found to be 6,500 feet (2,000 m) long when surveyed. If this colony grew clonally from a seed deposited along the Juniata River at the rate of 15 centimetres (5.9 in) per year, it would be about 13,000 years old, the oldest living organism in the United States.[2] Recent studies have attempted to determine whether, in fact, the reproduction of the colony (since heavily damaged by a forest fire in 1963 and road construction in the 1970s) has been entirely clonal. Two genotypes were found in samples taken from the colony, but they are thought to have arisen through somatic mutation rather than sexual reproduction.[12]
The caterpillar of the moth Geleichia dubitella has been reported to feed on the leaves.[14] The berries are eaten by wild turkeys and grouse.[5]
Uses
The berries are edible, and have been harvested for food by humans in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.[15] Rev. Frederick W. Gray, who documented many of the box huckleberry colonies in West Virginia in the 1920s, first took an interest in the plant when served a "juniper" pie, "juniper" being the local name for box huckleberry.[16] However, they are reportedly tasteless[3][14] and have not been commercially cultivated.
With the cooperation of the United States Department of Agriculture, efforts are under way to promote G. brachycera as a groundcover for use in landscaping.[17] Box huckleberry is commercially available from at least one source[18] but it is difficult to propagate, making it unprofitable for many nurseries to carry.[19]
Scientific history
Box huckleberry was originally discovered in 1796 near Winchester, Virginia (probably in what is now West Virginia) by the botanist Andre Michaux, who named it Vaccinium brachycerum.[8] Matthias Kinn, in 1800, and Pursh in 1805, also obtained specimens in West Virginia,[15] calling it Vaccinium buxifolium.[8]
No further specimens were collected until 1845, when Spencer Baird, a professor at Dickinson College,[8] discovered a colony near New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania. It was redesignated G. brachycera in 1846 by Asa Gray on the basis of Baird's specimens.[12] The discovery brought about a friendship between Gray and Baird that ultimately resulted in the latter's appointment as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.[13][15] Specimens of box huckleberry were subsequently identified in Delaware in 1870, by William M. Canby.[8]
In 1919, Frederick V. Coville called attention to the threatened state of the plant in an article in Science. While investigating the species for horticultural purposes, he only found two herbarium specimens, those of Baird and Canby.[13] (Coville apparently did not locate Kinn's West Virginia specimen, preserved at the Muhlenberg Herbarium.[8]) Upon examination of the New Bloomfield site in 1918, he discovered the entire colony, except for one patch cut off by cultivation, was connected by roots, and that no seedlings were in evidence anywhere around the margins of the colony. Coville concluded that the plant was self-sterile and reproduced by extending rootstocks. After commercial nurserymen removed a truckload of box huckleberry from the New Bloomfield site in 1918, Coville was particularly anxious to preserve the species; fortunately, Edgar T. Wherry was able to locate the Delaware colony, thought lost, in 1919, and send specimens for cross-pollination with specimens from the Pennsylvania colony.[13]
This report stimulated considerable interest in the species. Additional colonies were located in Pennsylvania and Delaware, one in Maryland, several in Virginia, and many in West Virginia (1921), three in Tennessee (1920–1930), and two in Kentucky (1927–1932). In summarizing these discoveries in 1932, Wherry noted that many of the colonies were already known to local residents, who picked the berries for food, under names such as "juniper-berry," "ground-huckleberry", and "bear-huckleberry". He called for more intensive effort on the part of the scientific community to make use of such local knowledge in determining plant geography.[15]
A colony of box huckleberry was discovered in Durham County, North Carolina, the first report from that state, in 2003.[3]
References
- ^ "Gaylussacia brachycera". NatureServe Explorer. NatureServe. Retrieved 2008-08-13.
- ^ a b Wherry, Edgar T. (1972). "Box-Huckleberry as the Oldest Living Protoplasm". Castanea. 37 (2). Southern Appalachian Botanical Society: 94–95.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b c d Cook, Will. "Box Huckleberry (Gaylussacia brachycera)". Retrieved 2008-06-21.
- ^ a b c "Native Plant Database". Retrieved 2008-06-22.
- ^ a b c d e Crable, Ad (1999-08-20). "Meet The World's Oldest--and Hardest Working--Plant". Lancaster New Era. Retrieved 2008-06-22.
- ^ a b "CPC Plant Profile for Gaylussacia brachycera". Retrieved 2008-06-22.
- ^ Fergus, Charles (2002-01). Natural Pennsylvania: Exploring the State Forest Natural Areas. Stackpole Books. p. 48. ISBN 9780811720380. Retrieved 2008-06-22.
{{cite book}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ a b c d e f g Smith, Hazel (1971). "The Box Huckleberry, Gaylussacia brachycera". Castanea. 36 (2). Southern Appalachian Botanical Society: 81–89.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Kirkman, W. Benson (1990). "Creeping Blueberries (Ericaceae: Vaccinium sect. Herpothamnus)-A New Look at V. crassifolium Including V. sempervirens". Systematic Botany. 15 (4). American Society of Plant Taxonomists: 679–699. doi:10.2307/2419164. JSTOR 2419164.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Camp, W. H. (1941). "Studies in the Ericales: A Review of the North American Gaylussacieae; with Remarks on the Origin and Migration of the Group". Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club. 68 (8). Torrey Botanical Society: 531–551. doi:10.2307/2481455. JSTOR 2481455.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Floyd, Jennifer Whitehead (2002). "Phylogenetic and Biogeographic Patterns in Gaylussacia (Ericaceae) based on Morphological, Nuclear DNA, and Chloroplast DNA Variation". Systematic Botany. 27 (1). American Society of Plant Taxonomists: 99–115.
- ^ a b c Pooler, Margaret (2008). "Clonal Fidelity in Large Colonies of Gaylussacia brachycera Gray (Box Huckleberry) Assessed by DNA Fingerprinting". Northeastern Naturalist. 15 (1): 67. doi:10.1656/1092-6194(2008)15[67:CFILCO]2.0.CO;2.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ a b c d e Coville, Frederick V. (1919-07-11). "The Threatened Extinction of the Box Huckleberry, Gaylussacia brachycera". Science. 50 (1280): 30–34. doi:10.1126/science.50.1280.30. PMID 17801660.
- ^ a b Claypole, E. W. (1883). "Note on a Relic of the Native Flora of Pennsylvania, Surviving in Perry County". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 21 (114). American Philosophical Society: 226–230.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b c d Wherry, Edgar T. (1934). "The box huckleberry as an illustration of the need for fieldwork". Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club. 61 (2). Torrey Botanical Society: 81–84. doi:10.2307/2480787. JSTOR 2480787.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Brooks, Maurice G. (1986). "Southern Appalachian Botany: Some Historical Reflections". Castanea. 51 (4). Southern Appalachian Botanical Society: 233–238.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Pooler, Margaret. "Recovery, propagation, and evaluation of the box huckleberry, Gaylussacia brachycera (Michx.) Gray". HortScience. 38 (5): 668.
- ^ "Gaylussacia brachycera". Retrieved 2008-06-24.
- ^ Cullina, William (2002). Native Trees, Shrubs & Vines. Houghton Mifflin Books. ISBN 0618098585.