bog bilberry

Vaccinium uliginosum is a small deciduous shrub growing to 10–75 centimetres (4–30 in) tall, rarely 1 metre (3 feet) tall, with brown stems (unlike the green stems of the closely related bilberry). The leaves are oval, 4–30 millimetres (1⁄8–1+1⁄8 in) long and 2–15 mm (1⁄16–9⁄16 in) wide, blue-green with pale net-like veins, with a smooth margin and rounded apex. The flowers are pendulous, urn-shaped, pale pink, 4–6 mm (3⁄16–1⁄4 in) long, produced in mid-spring. The fruit is a dark blue-black berry 5–8 mm (3⁄16–5⁄16 in) in diameter, with sweet white flesh, ripe in late summer. Cytology is 2n = 24. Its fruit persists for an average of 26.1 days, and bears an average of 24.7 seeds per fruit. The fruit averages 86.8% water, with the dry weight including 38.4% carbohydrates and 3.9% lipids.

The plant is native to cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, at low altitudes in the Arctic, Baltics, and at high altitudes south to the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Caucasus in Europe, the mountains of Mongolia, northern China, the Korean Peninsula and central Japan in Asia, and the Sierra Nevada in California and the Rocky Mountains in Utah in North America. It grows on wet acidic soils on heathland, moorland, tundra, and in the understory of coniferous forests, from sea level in the Arctic, up to 3,400 m (11,200 ft) altitude in the south of the range. It is also occasionally found on calcareous soils on mountain ledges. V. uliginosum can survive long, severe climatic oscillations.

The berries can be eaten raw or cooked, used to make jelly or pies, or dried to make pemmican. In Korean cuisine, bog bilberry is used to make infused liquor (Deuljjuk-sul).