vaccinium cormbosum

Highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) is one of the most beautiful, delicious, and creature friendly native shrubs in our New England
woods and swamps. As fall ripens, some trees and shrubs seem to turn color overnight and quickly drop their leaves. Not so the highbush and
others in its clan. Blueberries seem to accept the approach of winter only reluctantly, their leaves slowly transforming from green to maroon
and finally steamed lobster red. When we cleared a spot in our woods for the house, I left as many of the highbush blueberries as possible, and
now we have quite a mass of them mixed in with the laurels (Kalmia latifolia) along the edge of the woods. I notice the first blush of red in their
foliage around the end of September and marvel as the last maroon and scarlet leaves fall from the youngest twig tips around thanksgiving. The
gnarled, lichen-encrusted limbs of older specimens are wonderful in the winter. Like many others in the Ericaceae, Vaccinium corymbosum
continually sends up new shoots from the base of older trunks to renew the canopy. The older trunks can live for fifty years or more and reach a
diameter of three inches near the base, but more typically they succumb to falling debris, borers, or old age when half that size. Fortunately, if
you give the plants a modicum of sunlight and care, the old limbs live on for decades, becoming more twisted and lovely as time goes by. Truly
old ones have the same gothic quality as a Spanish moss-draped live oak in miniature.

Highbush blueberry comes in to flower here in late May, just as the queen
bumblebees, along with small solitary bees and flies are becoming
desperate for nectar. In ten minutes last May I photographed six species of
bees, flies and a wasp feeding in the flowers and apparently pollinating
them. The opening of the bloom is rolled back to provide a lip for the
insects to hang onto as they enter and exit the flower. Bumblebees are too
large to fit inside the bloom and either stick their tongue in the opening or
pierce the base of the flower, robbing the nectar but largely circumventing
the pollen and thus effective pollination. Small solitary bees enter all or
partway into the flower and I imagine they are more reliable pollinators.