Wild Florida Photo
Nature Photography by Paul Rebmann
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Vaccinium arboreum
SPARKLEBERRY
FARKLEBERRY
TREE HUCKLEBERRY
Florida native
A frequent shrub or small tree of hammocks, flatwoods and scrub in most of Florida except the southern peninsula. Ranges throughout the southeast, west to Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, and north into Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Virginia.
The flaking and scaling outer bark and reddish-brown trunk help distinguish this from the other Vaccinium species. Growing up to 9 meters (30 ft.) tall and often crooked and leaning, blooming profusely in April and May with small white cup-shaped flowers on long pedicels. The fruit is a many seeded berry, initially green, maturing black with the five-pointed star shaped remains of the sepals at the apex. The leaves are alternate, oval or broadly elliptic, widest at or above the middle. Usually entire, but sometimes with tiny serrations, 1.5-7 cm (2/3 - 2-3/4 in.) long and 0.8-4 cm (1/3 - 1-5/8 in.) wide.
Vaccinium arboreum is also called farkleberry and tree-huckleberry, but it is not really a huckleberry. The Vacciniums, or blueberries, can be distinguished from the huckleberries by the later having berries containing 10 larger seeds and the blueberries bearing berries with many tiny seeds.
Sparkleberry makes a very attractive landscape plant, working especially well along the edges of wooded areas. The berries, while edible, are not very tasteful to humans but are an excellent food for birds and other wildlife.
Vaccinium arboreum is a member of the Ericaceae - Heath family.
Other species of this genus in the Wild Florida Photo database:
View Vaccinium corymbosum - HIGHBUSH BLUEBERRY
Florida Wildflowers in Their Natural Communities
Walter Kingsley Taylor
Walter Taylor's guide will help readers recognize and identify wildflowers by where they're most likely to be found growing - their natural habitat.This book is the first of its kind for Florida. Taylor provides detailed descriptions and color photos of each community - pine flatwoods, sandhills, upland pine forest, scrub, temperate hardwood forest, coastal uplands, subtropical pine forest, tropical hardwood hammock, and ruderal sites - and of the wildflower species associated with each.
Purchase or get more information by clicking on the following image/link:
Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants (Institute for Systemic Botany) profile for this species
USDA Plant Profile for this species
Date record last modified:
Apr 08, 2009