Plant
Highbush blueberry
Vaccinium corymbosum
A native deciduous shrub of acid-soil wetlands, pine barrens, and damp forest edges across eastern North America — and the wild ancestor of nearly all commercial blueberry cultivars. Found on Staten Island in pine-barrens-style sites at Clay Pit Ponds, in the Greenbelt's wetter pockets, and on dune-edge and former-pasture sites borough-wide. Critical late-spring nectar source; berries are wildlife food and human food.
Scientific
Vaccinium corymbosum is a 6–12 ft deciduous shrub of acid soils — pH 4.5–5.5 optimal. Tolerates seasonally wet conditions; common in pine-barrens, peat bogs, and acidic wetland edges. White-pink urn-shaped spring flowers; blue-black berries in summer.
The wild ancestor of essentially all commercial blueberry cultivars. Modern cultivated varieties are mostly V. corymbosum selections plus interspecific hybrids. Blueberry cultivation depends on bumble bees and other native bees that can buzz-pollinate the urn-shaped flowers (honeybees pollinate inefficiently).
On Staten Island
Native shrub layer at Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve (pine-barrens-style), in Greenbelt wetter pockets, and at dune-edge and former-pasture sites. Fall foliage is brilliant red — among the most-conspicuous fall color among the borough’s native shrubs.
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Substrate of: pine-barrens
- Member of: plants
- Contained by: staten-island
Sources
- USDA NRCS Plants Database: highbush blueberry
- Pine-barrens ecosystem documentation (USFS, NJ Pinelands)
Rooted in life.
What links here, and how
Inbound connections from across the wiki, grouped by lens and by relationship. These appear automatically — every entity page declares what it links to, and that data populates here on the targets.
Scientific
cousin of
- Blueberry auto-linked via shared tag: kin
1 inbound link · 3 outbound