Gaylussacia brachycera

Taxobox
name = Box huckleberry

---

image_width = 200px
image_caption = Box huckleberry in bloom
status = G3
status_system = TNC
status_ref =Cite web
publisher =NatureServe
title = Gaylussacia brachycera
work = NatureServe Explorer
url = http://www.natureserve.org/explorer/servlet/NatureServe?searchName=Gaylussacia+brachycera+
accessdate = 2008-08-13]
regnum = Plantae
divisio = Magnoliophyta
classis = Magnoliopsida
ordo = Ericales
familia = Ericaceae
genus = "Gaylussacia"
species = "G. brachycera"
binomial = "Gaylussacia brachycera"
binomial_authority = (Michx.) A. Gray
synonyms ="Vaccinium buxifolium" Michx.
"Vaccinium brachycerum" Sims & Lewis
"Buxella brachycera" Small

Box Huckleberry ("Gaylussacia brachycera") is a low North American shrub related to the blueberry. A relic of the 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, eclipsed only by "Lomatia tasmanica". The plant takes its name from its distinctive leaves, which resemble those of the boxwood rather than other huckleberries.cite web | title=Box Huckleberry (Gaylussacia brachycera) | last=Cook | first=Will | url=http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook/trees/gabr.html | accessdate=2008-06-21]

Description

Box huckleberry is a low shrub, convert|6|to|8|in tall.cite web | title=Native Plant Database | url=http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=GABR5 | accessdate=2008-06-22] Its leaves resemble those of boxwood (hence its name). About convert|1|in|cm long and oval-shaped,cite news | title=Meet The World's Oldest--and Hardest Working--Plant | first=Ad | last=Crable | date=1999-08-20 | publisher=Lancaster New Era | url=http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/polycomm/pressrel/crable/crable082099.htm
accessdate=2008-06-22] they are glossy and minutely toothed, turning red in winter. The evergreen leaves, lacking resin glands, are in sharp contrast to other species of "Gaylussacia".cite web | title=CPC Plant Profile for "Gaylussacia brachycera" | url=http://www.centerforplantconservation.org/ASP/CPC_ViewProfile.asp?CPCNum=1999 | accessdate=2008-06-22] Box huckleberry flowers in May and June. 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. Its fruit consists of blue berries borne on short pedicels,cite book | title=Natural Pennsylvania: Exploring the State Forest Natural Areas | first=Charles | last=Fergus | coauthors=Rusty Rae | page=48 | url=http://books.google.com/books?id=E9PJxejJsigC&pg=PA48 | accessdate=2008-06-22] which appear in July and August.

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". ("Gaylussacia" was not recognized as a genus separate from "Vaccinium" until 1819. [cite journal | title=Creeping Blueberries (Ericaceae: Vaccinium sect. Herpothamnus)-A New Look at V. crassifolium Including V. sempervirens | first=W. Benson | last=Kirkman | coauthors=James R. Ballington | journal=Systematic Botany | volume=15 | issue=4 | year=1990 | pages=679–699 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/2419164 | accessdate=2008-06-26] ) 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". [cite journal | title=Studies in the Ericales: A Review of the North American Gaylussacieae; with Remarks on the Origin and Migration of the Group | first=W. H. | last=Camp | journal=Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club | volume=68 | issue=8 | year=1941 | month=November | pages=531–551 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/2481455 | accessdate=2008-06-24] 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. [cite journal | title=Phylogenetic and Biogeographic Patterns in "Galyssacia" (Ericaceae) based on Morphological, Nuclear DNA, and Chloroplast DNA Variation | first=Jennifer Whitehead | last=Floyd | journal=Systematic Botany | volume=27 | issue=1 | year=2002 | pages=99–115 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/3093898 | accessdate=2008-06-24]

Distribution and habitat

About 100 separate stations for box huckleberry have been documented in the scientific literature. Most of them fall within the Appalachian Mountains, but the specimens located in Maryland and Delaware were found on the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Box huckleberry prefers dry, acidic soils, including duff, and partial shade. Locations on wooded slopes tend to face north; 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.cite journal | first=Frederick V. | last=Coville | title=The Threatened Extinction of the Box Huckleberry, Gaylussacia brachycera | journal=Science | volume=50 | issue=1280 | date=1919-07-11 | pages=30–34 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/1641999 | accessdate=2008-06-21]

Ecology

Box huckleberry is self-sterile, so single plants cannot reproduce sexually. Instead, they form colonies which spread by vegetative reproduction along rootstocks. A colony of "G. brachycera" at Losh Run, Pennsylvania was found to be convert|6500|ft long when surveyed. If this colony grew clonally from a seed deposited along the Juniata River at the rate of convert|15|cm|in per year, it would be about 13,000 years old, the oldest living organism in the United States.cite journal | title=Box-Huckleberry as the Oldest Living Protoplasm | first=Edgar T. | last=Wherry | journal=Castanea | volume=37 | issue=2 | year=1972 | month=June | pages=94–95 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/4032456 | accessdate=2008-06-24] 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.

The caterpillar of the moth "Geleichia dubitella" has been reported to feed on the leaves.cite journal | title=Note on a Relic of the Native Flora of Pennsylvania, Surviving in Perry County | first=E. W. | last=Claypole | journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society | volume=21 | issue=114 | year=1883 | month=March | pages=226–230 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/982379 | accessdate=2008-06-24] The berries are eaten by wild turkeys and grouse.

Uses

The berries are edible, and have been harvested for food by humans in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. 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. [cite journal | title=Southern Appalachian Botany: Some Historical Reflections | first=Maurice G. | last=Brooks | coauthors=Weldon Boone, Frank Gilbert, H. A. Davis and Aaron J. Sharp | journal=Castanea | volume=51 | issue=4 | year=1986 | month=December | pages=233–238 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/4033305 | accessdate=2008-06-24] However, they are reportedly tasteless 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. [cite journal | first=Margaret | last=Pooler | title=Recovery, propagation, and evaluation of the box huckleberry, "Gaylussacia brachycera" (Michx.) Gray. | journal=HortScience | volume=38 | issue=5 | page=668] Box huckleberry is commercially available from at least one source [cite web | title=Gaylussacia brachycera | url=http://www.rarefindnursery.com/index.cfm/action/productdetail/product_id/1328.htm | accessdate=2008-06-24] but it is difficult to propagate, making it unprofitable for many nurseries to carry.cite book | title=Native Trees, Shrubs & Vines | first=William | last=Cullina | publisher=Houghton Mifflin Books | year=2002 | isbn=0618098585 | url=http://books.google.com/books?id=iKt-Lya7gbYC&pg=PT94 | accessdate=2008-06-24]

cientific 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".cite journal | title=The Box Huckleberry, Gaylussacia brachycera | first=Hazel | last=Smith | coauthors=Don Smith | journal=Castanea | volume=36 | issue=2 | year=1971 | month=June | pages=81–89 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/4032308 | accessdate=2008-06-21] Matthias Kinn, in 1800, and Pursh in 1805, also obtained specimens in West Virginia,cite journal | title=The box huckleberry as an illustration of the need for fieldwork | first=Edgar T. | last=Wherry | journal=Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club | volume=61 | issue=2 | year=1934 | month=February | pages=81–84 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/2480787 | accessdate=2008-06-21] calling it "Vaccinium buxifolium".

No further specimens were collected until 1845, when Spencer Baird, a professor at Dickinson College, discovered a colony near New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania. It was redesignated "G. brachycera" in 1846 by Asa Gray on the basis of Baird's specimens.cite journal | title=Clonal Fidelity in Large Colonies of Gaylussacia brachycera Gray (Box Huckleberry) Assessed by DNA Fingerprinting | first=Margaret | last=Pooler | coauthors=Rob Nicholson, Andrew Vandegrift | journal=Northeastern Naturalist | year=2008 | url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3845/is_200801/ai_n25419440/pg_1 | accessdate=2008-06-21] The discovery brought about a friendship between Gray and Baird that ultimately resulted in the latter's appointment as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Specimens of box huckleberry were subsequently identified in Delaware in 1870, by William M. Canby.

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. (Coville apparently did not locate Kinn's West Virginia specimen, preserved at the Muhlenberg Herbarium.) 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.

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.

A colony of box huckleberry was discovered in Durham County, North Carolina, the first report from that state, in 2003.

References