Vaccinium vacciniaceum

Description

Vaccinium vacciniaceum is a shrub of the eastern Himalaya and adjoining ranges, recorded by GBIF from India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh across about 187 occurrences. It is characteristically epiphytic or lithophytic, growing on the trunks and branches of forest trees and on mossy rocks in humid temperate and subtropical broad-leaved and evergreen forest, typically between roughly 1500 and 2700 m. The plant photographed above the Meta-Khola in Nepal at about 1850 m, in April, reflects this moist mid-montane forest habitat where high humidity and abundant epiphytic moss support its growth.

The plant is a small, much-branched evergreen shrub, often pendent or scrambling when epiphytic, with a somewhat woody, swollen base. The leaves are alternate, leathery, elliptic to ovate-lanceolate, with an acuminate apex, an entire or finely serrulate margin, and prominent venation. The flowers are borne in short axillary racemes and are urceolate (urn-shaped), the corolla white to pale pink with five short recurved lobes, subtended by small bracts; the stamens have awned anthers opening by terminal pores, as is typical of the genus. The fruit is a small globose berry, ripening dark and fleshy, attractive to birds that disperse the numerous tiny seeds.

The species, transferred to Vaccinium by Sleumer in his comprehensive treatment of Asian Ericaceae, belongs to the largely epiphytic Sino-Himalayan element of the genus. Its epiphytic habit and dependence on humid, moss-rich forest tie it closely to intact, well-shaded montane woodland, and the fleshy berries indicate ornithochorous dispersal. Although not formally assessed as threatened, epiphytic Vaccinium are sensitive to forest clearance and to declines in the canopy humidity on which their establishment depends.

Author: (Roxb.) Sleumer · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Sleumer revision of Asian Vaccinium (Ericaceae), Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal