Vaccinium
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Vaccinium".

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Vaccinium
Vaccinium berries, from top right: Cranberries, lingonberries, blueberries, red huckleberries
Vaccinium berries, from top right:
Cranberries, lingonberries, blueberries, red huckleberries
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Ericales
Family: Ericaceae
Genus: Vaccinium
L.
Type species
V. uliginosum1
Species

See text

Vaccinium is a genus of shrubs in the plant Family Ericaceae including the cranberry, blueberry, bilberry or whortleberry, lingonberry or cowberry, and huckleberry. The genus contains about 450 species, which are found mostly in the cooler areas of the Northern Hemisphere, although there are tropical species from as widely separated areas as Madagascar and Hawai'i. The plants prefer heath landscapes, as well as open forests. The name Vaccinium was used for a type of berry (probably the bilberry V. myrtillus) in classical Latin, but its ultimate derivation is obscure; it has nothing to do with vaccinum "of or pertaining to cows", but may be a corruption of Latin bacca, berry (OED).

The fruit develops from an inferior ovary, and is a false berry.

Vaccinium species are used as food plants by the larvae of a number of Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) species - see list of Lepidoptera that feed on Vaccinium.

The taxonomy is complex, and still under investigation. A number of the Asian species are more closely related to Agapetes than to other Vaccinium species.23 A second group includes most of Orthaea and Notopora, at least some of Gaylussacia (huckleberry), and a number of species from Vaccinium, such as Vaccinium crassifolium.2 Other parts of Vaccinium form other groups, sometimes together with species of other genera.2

A classification which predates molecular phylogeny divides Vaccinium into subgenera, and several sections:

Subgenus Oxycoccus
The cranberries, with slender, trailing, wiry non-woody shoots and strongly reflexed flower petals. Some botanists treat Oxycoccus as a distinct genus.
Subgenus Vaccinium
All the other species, with thicker, upright woody shoots and bell-shaped flowers.

References

  1. ^ "Vaccinium Linnaeus" (HTML). Index Nominum Genericorum. International Association for Plant Taxonomy. 2003-02-05. http://botany.si.edu/ing/INGsearch.cfm?searchword=Vaccinium. Retrieved on 2008-05-09. 
  2. ^ a b c Kathleen A. Kron, E. Ann Powell and J. L. Luteyn (2002). "Phylogenetic relationships within the blueberry tribe (Vaccinieae, Ericaceae) based on sequence data from MATK and nuclear ribosomal ITS regions, with comments on the placement of Satyria". American Journal of Botany 89: 327–336. doi:10.3732/ajb.89.2.327. http://www.amjbot.org/cgi/content/full/89/2/327. 
  3. ^ "Vaccinium". Flora of China. http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=134285. 

External links
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