Gaylussacia brachycera

Box huckleberry
Box huckleberry in fruit
Conservation status
Vulnerable  (NatureServe)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Eudicots
Clade:	Asterids
Order:	Ericales
Family:	Ericaceae
Genus:	Gaylussacia
Species:	G. brachycera
Binomial name
Gaylussacia brachycera (Michx.) A.Gray
Synonyms[2]
Vaccinium brachycerum Michx. 1803 Vaccinium buxifolium Salisb. Buxella brachycera Small Adnaria brachycera (Torr. & A.Gray) Kuntze Decamerium brachycerum (Michx.) Ashe

Gaylussacia brachycera, commonly known as box huckleberry or box-leaved whortleberry, is a low North American shrub related to the blueberry and the other huckleberries. It is native to the east-central United States (Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee).^[3]

Gaylussacia brachycera is easily distinguished from other members of its genus by its leaves: they resemble those of boxwood (hence its name) and lack the resin glands typical of huckleberries. Like its relatives, it bears white urn-shaped flowers in the early summer, which develop to blue, edible berries in late summer. It is mostly found in Appalachia; many of its stands there were known to natives, who picked and ate the berries, before botanists became aware of them in the 1920s.

A relict species nearly exterminated by 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 was once estimated to be as many as 13,000 years old; more recent estimates have an upper bound of about 8,000 years, which would make it the oldest woody plant east of the Rocky Mountains. Another colony in Pennsylvania, about 1,300 years old, has been protected by the Hoverter and Sholl Box Huckleberry Natural Area.