Alpine Bilberry

The berry is nutritious and has a sweetish taste.

Shrubs deciduous, 0.5–1 m tall, alpine populations usually 10–15 cm tall, much branched, rhizomatous. Twigs terete, puberulous to glabrous. Leaves scattered; petiole ca. 2 mm, puberulous; leaf blade obovate or elliptic to oblong, 1–3 × 0.6–1.5 cm, papery, abaxially glaucous, puberulous, adaxially subglabrous, secondary veins 3–5 pairs, fine veins evident especially abaxially, base cuneate or broadly cuneate, margin plane, entire, with 1 basal gland per side, apex rounded, sometimes retuse. Inflorescences fasciculate, at end of shoot, 1–3-flowered; bracts caducous, 1.5–2.5 mm. Pedicel ca. 5 mm, glabrous. Flowers 4- or 5-merous. Hypanthium ca. 0.8 mm, glabrous; calyx lobes 4 or 5, triangular-ovate, ca. 1 mm. Corolla greenish white, broadly urceolate, ca. 5 mm, glabrous; lobes triangular, ca. 1 mm. Filaments ca. 1 mm, glabrous; anthers ca. 1.5 mm, thecae with 2 spurs, tubules slightly shorter than thecae. Berry 4- or 5-loculed, bluish purple, subglobose or ellipsoidal, with a bloom, ca. 1 cm in diam. Fl. Jun, fr. Jul–Aug. 2n = 24, 48.

N Heilongjiang (Da Hinggan Ling), S Jilin (Changbai Shan), NE Nei Mongol (Da Hinggan Ling) [Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Russia; Europe, North America].

Larix forests, forest margins, meadow-moors, alpine steppes; 900–2300 m.