Gaylussacia brachycera
Encyclopedia
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 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 stations 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
.
(hence its name). About 1 inches (2.5 cm) long and oval-shaped, 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
. 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 fruits, which appear in July and August, are blue berries borne on short pedicel
s.
(probably in what is now West Virginia
) by the botanist André Michaux
. Michaux named it Vaccinium brachycerum in his Flora Boreali-Americana, published in 1803. Matthias Kinn, in about 1800, and Frederick Pursh, in 1805, also obtained specimens in West Virginia. R. A. Salisbury
referred to it as V. buxifolium in 1805, and this remained the prevailing name for the next forty years; the common name "box-leaved whortle-berry" was used for the species at the time.
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. (Gaylussacia was not recognized as a genus separate from Vaccinium until 1819.) The discovery brought about a friendship between Gray and Baird that ultimately resulted in the latter's appointment as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
.
John Kunkel Small
assigned the species, as Buxella brachycera, to a monotypic genus in 1933. However, this was not widely accepted, and was rejected by other authors on the grounds of both nomenclatural and "phyletic unsoundness". 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.
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, as the New Bloomfield site was the only one then thought extant. (It was protected by the state from 1929, becoming the Hoverter and Sholl Box Huckleberry Natural Area
.) However, 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
, three in Tennessee
(1920–1930), two in Kentucky
(1927–1932), and many in West Virginia (1921). 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. More recently, a colony of box huckleberry was discovered in Durham County, North Carolina
, the first report from that state, in 2003.
Most of the reported stations for box huckleberry 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
, and the single North Carolina station is in the Piedmont
. Its scattered distribution suggests that the species once spread more broadly across North America, but was almost eradicated by glacial advances, surviving only where it escaped the ice in protected refugia.
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.
along rootstocks. A colony of G. brachycera at Losh Run, Pennsylvania was found to be 6500 feet (1,981.2 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
and second oldest in the world, eclipsed only by Lomatia tasmanica. However, this is believed now to be an overestimate on climactic grounds. At that time, the site was covered by a boreal forest thought to be too cold for the box huckleberry to survive; the current forest did not begin to appear at the site until about 8,000 years ago. This age would still make it the oldest woody plant east of the Rocky Mountains
. 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. Unfortunately, the destruction of about 80% of the colony by fire and construction makes it impossible to definitively settle the question.
The caterpillar
of the moth
Dichomeris juncidella has been reported to feed on the leaves. The berries are eaten by Wild Turkey
s and Ruffed Grouse
. They 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. However, they are reportedly tasteless.
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
. Box huckleberry is commercially available from at least one source but it is difficult to propagate, making it unprofitable for many nurseries to carry. In New Bloomfield, the box huckleberry has become part of the local New Year
's celebrations, as a papier-mâché
replica of a huckleberry is dropped, instead of a ball
, to mark the new year.
Blueberry
Blueberries are flowering plants of the genus Vaccinium with dark-blue berries and are perennial...
and the other huckleberries. It is easily distinguished from other members of its genus by its leaves: they resemble those of boxwood
Buxus
Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or 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
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
; many of its stations there were known to natives, who picked and ate the berries, before botanists became aware of them in the 1920s.
A relict
Relict
A relict is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon.* In biology a relict is an organism that at an earlier time was abundant in a large area but now occurs at only one or a few small areas....
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
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
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
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
. Another colony in Pennsylvania, about 1,300 years old, has been protected by the Hoverter and Sholl Box Huckleberry Natural Area
Hoverter and Sholl Box Huckleberry Natural Area
Hoverter and Sholl Box Huckleberry Natural Area is a natural area in Perry County, Pennsylvania, near New Bloomfield, which protects a colony of box huckleberry over 1,000 years old. The smallest Natural Area in Pennsylvania, it is administered as part of Tuscarora State Forest...
.
Description
Box huckleberry is a low shrub, 6 to 8 in (15.2 to 20.3 ) tall. Its leaves resemble those of boxwoodBuxus
Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood ....
(hence its name). About 1 inches (2.5 cm) long and oval-shaped, 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
Gaylussacia
Gaylussacia is a genus of about fifty species of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae, native to the Americas, where they occur in eastern North America and in South America in the Andes and the mountains of southeastern Brazil...
. 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
Raceme
A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...
springing from the leaf axils. Its fruits, which appear in July and August, are blue berries borne on short pedicel
Pedicel (botany)
A pedicel is a stem that attaches single flowers to the main stem of the inflorescence. It is the branches or stalks that hold each flower in an inflorescence that contains more than one flower....
s.
Taxonomy
Box huckleberry was first collected and described in 1796 near Winchester, VirginiaWinchester, Virginia
Winchester is an independent city located in the northwestern portion of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the USA. The city's population was 26,203 according to the 2010 Census...
(probably in what is now West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
) by the botanist André Michaux
André Michaux
André Michaux was a French botanist and explorer.-Biography:Michaux was born in Satory, now part of Versailles, Yvelines. After the death of his wife within a year of their marriage he took up the study of botany and was a student of Bernard de Jussieu...
. Michaux named it Vaccinium brachycerum in his Flora Boreali-Americana, published in 1803. Matthias Kinn, in about 1800, and Frederick Pursh, in 1805, also obtained specimens in West Virginia. R. A. Salisbury
Richard Anthony Salisbury
Richard Anthony Salisbury FRS was a British botanist. While he is remembered as a valuable worker in horticultural and botanical sciences, several bitter disputes caused him to be ostracised by his contemporaries.-Life:...
referred to it as V. buxifolium in 1805, and this remained the prevailing name for the next forty years; the common name "box-leaved whortle-berry" was used for the species at the time.
No further specimens were collected until 1845, when Spencer Baird, a professor at Dickinson College
Dickinson College
Dickinson College is a private, residential liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally established as a Grammar School in 1773, Dickinson was chartered September 9, 1783, five days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, making it the first college to be founded in the newly...
, discovered a colony near New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania. It was redesignated G. brachycera in 1846 by Asa Gray
Asa Gray
-References:*Asa Gray. Dictionary of American Biography. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936.*Asa Gray. Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.*Asa Gray. Plant Sciences. 4 vols. Macmillan Reference USA, 2001....
on the basis of Baird's specimens. (Gaylussacia was not recognized as a genus separate from Vaccinium until 1819.) The discovery brought about a friendship between Gray and Baird that ultimately resulted in the latter's appointment as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
.
John Kunkel Small
John Kunkel Small
John Kunkel Small was an American botanist.He was the first Curator of Museums at The New York Botanical Garden, a post in which he served from 1898 until 1906. From 1906 to 1934 he was Head Curator and then from 1934 until his death he was Chief Research Associate and Curator...
assigned the species, as Buxella brachycera, to a monotypic genus in 1933. However, this was not widely accepted, and was rejected by other authors on the grounds of both nomenclatural and "phyletic unsoundness". More recently, phylogenetic studies in 2002 suggested that the monophyly
Monophyly
In common cladistic usage, a monophyletic group is a taxon which forms a clade, meaning that it contains all the descendants of the possibly hypothetical closest common ancestor of the members of the group. The term is synonymous with the uncommon term holophyly...
of G. brachycera with the remainder of Gaylussacia is "equivocal", and further analysis of Vaccinium
Vaccinium
Vaccinium is a genus of shrubs or dwarf shrubs in the plant Family Ericaceae. The fruit of many species are eaten by humans and some are of commercial importance, including the cranberry, blueberry, bilberry or whortleberry, lingonberry or cowberry, and huckleberry...
might result in G. brachycera being returned to that genus.
Distribution and habitat
About 100 separate stations for box huckleberry have been documented in the scientific literature. By the time of Baird's collection in 1845, the West Virginia stations of the plant had been lost to science, and his Pennsylvania colony was the only one known for some time. Specimens of box huckleberry were subsequently identified in DelawareDelaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
in 1870, by William M. Canby.
In 1919, Frederick V. Coville
Frederick Vernon Coville
Frederick Vernon Coville was an American botanist who careered in the United States Department of Agriculture , where he became Chief Botanist, and was the first director of the United States National Arboretum...
called attention to the threatened state of the plant in an article in Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
. While investigating the species for horticultural purposes, he only found two herbarium
Herbarium
In botany, a herbarium – sometimes known by the Anglicized term herbar – is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in...
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, as the New Bloomfield site was the only one then thought extant. (It was protected by the state from 1929, becoming the Hoverter and Sholl Box Huckleberry Natural Area
Hoverter and Sholl Box Huckleberry Natural Area
Hoverter and Sholl Box Huckleberry Natural Area is a natural area in Perry County, Pennsylvania, near New Bloomfield, which protects a colony of box huckleberry over 1,000 years old. The smallest Natural Area in Pennsylvania, it is administered as part of Tuscarora State Forest...
.) However, Edgar T. Wherry
Edgar T. Wherry
Edgar Theodore Wherry was an American mineralogist, soil scientist and botanist. He had a deep interest in ferns and Sarracenia.Wherry earned his bachelors degree in chemistry in 1906 from the University of Pennsylvania. He received his doctorate in mineralogy in 1909 from the same university....
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
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, several in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, three in Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
(1920–1930), two in Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
(1927–1932), and many in West Virginia (1921). 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. More recently, a colony of box huckleberry was discovered in Durham County, North Carolina
Durham County, North Carolina
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 223,314 people, 89,015 households, and 54,032 families residing in the county. The population density was 769 people per square mile . There were 95,452 housing units at an average density of 329 per square mile...
, the first report from that state, in 2003.
Most of the reported stations for box huckleberry fall within the Appalachian Mountains
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
, 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
Atlantic Coastal Plain
The Atlantic coastal plain has both low elevation and low relief, but it is also a relatively flat landform extending from the New York Bight southward to a Georgia/Florida section of the Eastern Continental Divide, which demarcates the plain from the ACF River Basin in the Gulf Coastal Plain to...
, and the single North Carolina station is in the Piedmont
Piedmont (United States)
The Piedmont is a plateau region located in the eastern United States between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the main Appalachian Mountains, stretching from New Jersey in the north to central Alabama in the south. The Piedmont province is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division...
. Its scattered distribution suggests that the species once spread more broadly across North America, but was almost eradicated by glacial advances, surviving only where it escaped the ice in protected refugia.
Box huckleberry prefers dry, acidic soils, including duff
Forest floor
The forest floor, also called detritus, duff and the O horizon, is one of the most distinctive features of a forest ecosystem. It mainly consists of shed vegetative parts, such as leaves, branches, bark, and stems, existing in various stages of decomposition above the soil surface...
, 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.
Ecology and human use
Box huckleberry is self-sterile, so single plants cannot reproduce sexually. Instead, they form colonies which spread by vegetative reproductionVegetative reproduction
Vegetative reproduction is a form of asexual reproduction in plants. It is a process by which new individuals arise without production of seeds or spores...
along rootstocks. A colony of G. brachycera at Losh Run, Pennsylvania was found to be 6500 feet (1,981.2 m) long when surveyed. If this colony grew clonally from a seed deposited along the Juniata River
Juniata River
The Juniata River is a tributary of the Susquehanna River, approximately long, in central Pennsylvania in the United States. The river is considered scenic along much of its route, having a broad and shallow course passing through several mountain ridges and steeply-lined water gaps...
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
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and second oldest in the world, eclipsed only by Lomatia tasmanica. However, this is believed now to be an overestimate on climactic grounds. At that time, the site was covered by a boreal forest thought to be too cold for the box huckleberry to survive; the current forest did not begin to appear at the site until about 8,000 years ago. This age would still make it the oldest woody plant east of the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
. 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
Somatic
The term somatic means 'of the body',, relating to the body. In medicine, somatic illness is bodily, not mental, illness. The term is often used in biology to refer to the cells of the body in contrast to the germ line cells which usually give rise to the gametes...
mutation
Mutation
In molecular biology and genetics, mutations are changes in a genomic sequence: the DNA sequence of a cell's genome or the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. They can be defined as sudden and spontaneous changes in the cell. Mutations are caused by radiation, viruses, transposons and mutagenic...
rather than sexual reproduction. Unfortunately, the destruction of about 80% of the colony by fire and construction makes it impossible to definitively settle the question.
The caterpillar
Caterpillar
Caterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...
of the moth
Moth
A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...
Dichomeris juncidella has been reported to feed on the leaves. The berries are eaten by Wild Turkey
Wild Turkey
The Wild Turkey is native to North America and is the heaviest member of the Galliformes. It is the same species as the domestic turkey, which derives from the South Mexican subspecies of wild turkey .Adult wild turkeys have long reddish-yellow to grayish-green...
s and Ruffed Grouse
Ruffed Grouse
The Ruffed Grouse is a medium-sized grouse occurring in forests from the Appalachian Mountains across Canada to Alaska. It is non-migratory.The Ruffed Grouse is frequently referred to as a "partridge"...
. They have been harvested for food by humans in West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
, Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
, and Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
. 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. However, they are reportedly tasteless.
With the cooperation of the United States Department of Agriculture
United States Department of Agriculture
The United States Department of Agriculture is the United States federal executive department responsible for developing and executing U.S. federal government policy on farming, agriculture, and food...
, efforts are under way to promote G. brachycera as a groundcover
Groundcover
Groundcover refers to any plant that grows over an area of ground, used to provide protection from erosion and drought, and to improve its aesthetic appearance .- Ecosystem :...
for use in landscaping
Landscaping
Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including:# living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly referred to as gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal of creating a beautiful environment within the landscape.#...
. Box huckleberry is commercially available from at least one source but it is difficult to propagate, making it unprofitable for many nurseries to carry. In New Bloomfield, the box huckleberry has become part of the local New Year
New Year
The New Year is the day that marks the time of the beginning of a new calendar year, and is the day on which the year count of the specific calendar used is incremented. For many cultures, the event is celebrated in some manner....
's celebrations, as a papier-mâché
Papier-mâché
Papier-mâché , alternatively, paper-mache, is a composite material consisting of paper pieces or pulp, sometimes reinforced with textiles, bound with an adhesive, such as glue, starch, or wallpaper paste....
replica of a huckleberry is dropped, instead of a ball
Times Square Ball
The Times Square Ball is a time ball dropped each year during the New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square, Manhattan, New York City. The ball is made by Waterford Crystal and electric lights is raised to the top of a pole on the One Times Square building at 6:00 pm and then lowered to mark the...
, to mark the new year.