Indicator Plants

• Shrub
• Common to moist coniferous forests, openings, and especially soils rich in decaying wood
• Low to subalpine elevations.

• Form: Erect and spreading, up to 2 m tall
• Leaves: Alternate, deciduous, oval, up to 4 cm long, typically lacking teeth
• Flowers: Pinkish, urn-shaped and typically longer than broad, generally appear before or with emergence of leaves
• Fruit: Blue-black berries with a whitish bloom. More flavourful than supermarket blueberries.

• Vaccinium alaskaense (Alaskan blueberry)  looks very similar. Most reliable way to distinguish is to take a leaf sample, fold in half along the midvein, and use hand lens to look for scattered hairs on underside of midvein. If it has midvein hairs, it is alaskaense.
  • Other ways: berries of Alaska blueberry emerge after the leaves, oval-leaved blueberry is more highly
    branched and has finer reddish twigs, oval-leaved blueberry has flowers longer than they
    are wide (while Alaska is wider than long), Alaska has fruit stalks enlarged just below berry (while oval is not enlarged)
• Vaccinium parvifolium(red huckleberry) can also look similar, but has smaller leaves and greener twigs with a less spreading branching pattern, plus bright red berries

• Highly regarded by all coastal aboriginal peoples as a delicious fruit

• Often occurs with Vaccinium alaskaense and Vacciniun parvifolium

E-Flora of BC - Vaccinium ovalifolium

Douglas, G.W. et al (Editors). 1998-2002. Illustrated Flora of British Columbia, Volumes 1 to 8. B.C. Min. Environ., Lands and Parks, and B.C. Min. For., Victoria, B.C.

Pojar, J. and A. MacKinnon. 2014. Plants of Coastal British Columbia Including Washington, Oregon & Alaska. B.C. Ministry of Forestry and Lone Pine Publishing. Vancouver, B.C.