Black huckleberry, a colonial shrub forming small to extensive clones, is very widespread, especially in the fire-prone pitch
pine forest and barrens, where it can become a sole proprietor, forming the pitch pine/huckleberry forest and rivaling even
scrub oak. Immediately after fires, it vigorously resprouts,
often becoming the only understory shrub for a while. In May huckleberry brightens the sparse forest with clusters of small
orange or red flowers,
which by the end of July become glossy black, sweet and juicy fruits (the Latin epithet
baccata means “with berries”).
Black huckleberry is an immediate relative of
blue huckleberry (or dangleberry),
Gaylussacia frondosa. Black huckleberry is generally more common and pays much more important role than blue huckleberry in Plymouth
(for example, in Myles Standish SF). Black huckleberry is often mixed with
hillside blueberry (
Vaccinium pallidum).
As these two species often attain the same height (2-3 ft) and produce edible fruit, people neglect to recognize them as different
plants.
Meanwhile, it is easy to tell a huckleberry from a blueberry even during the wintertime, when both stay leafless. Huckleberry
produces “real woody"
stems coated with dark bark. They are not much flexible; blueberry, on the contrary, has flexible green stems that appear
“not enough woody.”
Pitch pine/huckleberry community after a recent fire. Massasoit Wildlife Refuge, Plymouth