Vaccinium myrtillus
species of plant
Vaccinium myrtillus is a holarctic species of shrub with edible fruit of blue color, known by the common names bilberry, blaeberry, and whortleberry. It is more precisely called common bilberry or blue whortleberry to distinguish it from other Vaccinium relatives.
Description
Vaccinium myrtillus is a small deciduous shrub that grows 10–51 centimetres (4–20 in) tall, heavily branched with upright, angular to narrow winged, green-colored branches that are glabrous. It grows rhizomes, creating extensive patches. The shrub can live up to 30 years, with roots reaching depths of up to 1 metre (3+1⁄2 ft). It has light green leaves that turn red in autumn and are simple and alternate in arrangement. The leaves are 1–3 cm (3⁄8–1+1⁄8 in) long and ovate to lanceolate or broadly elliptic in shape, with glandular to finely toothed margins; they are prominently veined on the lower surface. In winter, the foliage turns deep red and becomes deciduous.
Small, hermaphrodite flowers with thick stems (about 2–3 millimetres or 1⁄16–1⁄8 inch long) grow individually from the leaf axils and nod downward. These flowers, blooming from April to May, have crowns 4 to 6 mm long that are greenish to reddish.
“Vaccinium myrtillus” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Vaccinium, myrtillus and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Vaccinium myrtillus” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Vaccinium, myrtillus and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5413585. The Library of Congress control number is sh85141722. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vaccinium myrtillus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.