Quackin Grass Nursery

Image 1 of 2

beautiful mix of red and green glossy leaves set densely in autumn

Gaylussacia brachycera - ​Box Huckleberry is a most handsome, choice and underutilized ericaceous shrub. Small oval to obovate glossy green leaves often display some red in the stem and on new foliage. Averaging about 1 foot tall, box-leaved whortleberry (ugh, common names! "You're a whortleberry." "No, you, you - you're the whortleberry...") may achieve heights of only 6 though possibly up to about 18 inches high with a commensurate breadth of 3 to 4 feet following several years of growth once a shrub is acclimated. Over many circadian rhythms a shrub can colonize and become formidable; but this will require a happy circumstance for the shrub and many decades. Clustered pink to white urn-shaped flowers beautifully decorate the shrub in the spring. Dark blue edible berries look a lot like beloved blueberries to which Box Huckleberry is related making it a refined wildlife plant... chances are the birds, etc. will savor the fruits before the two-legged among us hone in on the opportunity. Berries mature in summer. Winter foliage color is dark red-purple to bronze. Inter in acid, friable and organic soil that holds moisture but breaths sited in part to open shade or at least sloped away from scorching sun, perhaps backed by taller deciduous plants that will provide some protection from burning rays. This is not an easy plant to satisfy and that is the main reason why it is underutilized being particular about all the elements coming together in a narrowly accepted cultural band... but if you can make it happen it is remarkably handsome and kudos to you! And you will, of course, endear yourself to your peers in the garden club (or not if there are backstabbing whortleberries in your circle). While you regale as to how you succeeded you will quietly implicate your peers as somehow less skilled, less worthy, just plain less. Aren't you special? Oh, you will be so esteemed and beloved by the garden club minions (yeah, but they're a bunch of whortleberries!) Lord, how they will hate you. Self-sterile and hermaphroditic, Gaylussacia brachycera is cross fertile which means two or more individuals will be required for fruiting. Established potted shrub from cutting.

There have been several ancient colonies identified which have spread slowly through the many years, remnants of the last Ice Age. For those interested we credit the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry for the following information, the colony discussed originates in the Tuscarora State Forest in the Hoverter & Sholl Box Huckleberry Natural Area:

"This colony of the rare native shrub is estimated to be about 1,300 years old. In 1845, Professor S. F. Baird of Dickinson College, Carlisle, discovered this colony which spreads over nearly nine acres of woodland. Professor Baird’s discovery did not arouse attention until 1948, when Dr. F. V. Corville of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, after extensive studies, announced that the entire colony consistedof a single plant at least 1,200 years old. There is a possibility that it might be even older since cultivation and road building may have destroyed parts of the colony.

The plants grow on a slope facing west and the loam soil of acid reaction is typical of a large portion of the oak forest region. The colony spreads by means of runners whose average growth is about six inches per year. This, coupled with the area occupied, is the means of determining the age of the plant. Botanists have been unsuccessful in growing this plant from seed, however Dr. Wherry from the U.S.D.A., has produced the shrub by cross pollination with other colonies.

In July 1920, H. A. Ward discovered another colony of this rare plant along the Northeast bank of the Juniata River between Newport and Duncannon. This colony, covering an area of about 100 acres, was estimated to be 13,000 years old, which would make it the oldest living thing in the world. Unfortunately, extensive areas of this large colony were destroyed by the rebuilding of U.S. 22 - 322.

A few isolated plots of this shrub have since been found in six other states: Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee."