So far, I have only seen this uncommon species in a naturalistic display at the Philadelphia Flower Show in March of 2012 and a planting at Jenkins Arboretum in Berwyn in southeast Pennsylvania in June 2018. It is a low-growing evergreen shrub that spreads rhizomes and forms a colony in time, often a solid mat or a dense broad mound. The thick, dark, glossy leaves, about 1/2 to 1 inch long, develop a reddish-purple tinge in winter. The white or white with pink marks urn-shaped flowers about 1/4 inch long are borne in short clusters (racemes) at the end of shoots in May into early June. The bluish berry-like drupe fruit, like a Blueberry fruit, except with a bigger seed, matures in July-August. It likes part-shade and a soil that is acid, loose, well-drained, yet moist with organic matter. It is native from Pennsylvania through West Virginia & Maryland to Virginia to Kentucky & Tennessee with a new colony found near Durham, NC. I've never seen it sold by conventional nurseries, but it is offered by some native plant and mail-order nurseries in containers. The big mail order nursery of Spring Hill offers a clone called 'Berried Treasure.' It is a lovely broadleaf evergreen. I hope to someday visit a site in central PA near Amity-Hall where there used to be about 300 acres covered by this species, though expansion of a large road took out much of it. There is also a 10 acre Hoverter & Scholl Box Huckleberry Natural Area just south east of New Bloomfield, PA, just west of the Susquehanna River in Perry County that is full of colonies of this species.

Reply to this comment