Summer '09 Northeast Wild Edibles Thread

[the_swede]

Came across some domesticated blueberries today on Schunemunk Mountain in Orange Co., NY. The bushes were growing 6 feet tall in places, the tallest I'd ever seen. Wonder how they got there high up on that ridge. Definitely not "wild".

 

[arghman]

Came across some domesticated blueberries today on Schunemunk Mountain in Orange Co., NY. The bushes were growing 6 feet tall in places, the tallest I'd ever seen. Wonder how they got there high up on that ridge. Definitely not "wild".

why do you assume they're domesticated? Different species of Vaccinium have different growth forms... V. angustifolium is the small wild blueberry, V. caesariense is a common highbush blueberry. Usually the highbush blueberries are around the edges of swamps, but it's not out of the question for a large blueberry bush to be in upland habitat.

If they're in rows and/or the berries are larger than 5/8" diameter, that would make me suspicious of cultivation.

 

[peakbagger]

I will back up that there there are varieties of "wild" high bush blueberries. We used to find them in many locations in southern Maine, (sadly a lot of those places are now developed). In one area many years ago surveying along the So Portland/Scarborough Maine town line, we encountered climbing blueberry bushes that had grown up into a hardwood canopy. To pick the berries we had to pull branches of the hardwoods down as some of the berries were over 20 feet off the ground.

Typically the high bush berries were in very boggy areas and stood around 3 to 6 feet high. Really nice not to have to stoop, but the trade off was wet shoes and occasional deep steps into the moss.

 

[the_swede]

why do you assume they're domesticated? Different species of Vaccinium have different growth forms... V. angustifolium is the small wild blueberry, V. caesariense is a common highbush blueberry. Usually the highbush blueberries are around the edges of swamps, but it's not out of the question for a large blueberry bush to be in upland habitat.

If they're in rows and/or the berries are larger than 5/8" diameter, that would make me suspicious of cultivation.

Oh, I see. Yes, they definitely were highbush blueberry, the commonly cultivated blueberry. Can't say they were in rows but I figured maybe the seeds may have been carried there by birds or something since there are farms all around the base of the mountain. There are swamps high up on the ridge but if anyone's familiar with Schunemunk, the ridge contains a lot of "whaleback" rocks and it's kind of dry up there.