Plants forming ± open colonies, 1-11.5 dm; twigs greenish brown, terete, pilose or hairy. Leaves deciduous; blade green, elliptic, 23-35 × 8-16 mm, membranous to subcoriaceous, margins entire, surfaces ± densely hairy (sometimes mostly on veins), eglandular, sometimes glabrescent. Flowers: calyx green, glabrous, (eglandular); corolla greenish white to pink, urceolate, 3-5 mm, (eglandular); filaments usually hairy. Berries blue, glaucous, 6-8 mm diam., glabrous. Seeds 10-40, ca. 1 mm. 2n = 24.

Flowering late spring-early summer. Open or disturbed sites in boreal forest, muskegs, bogs, barrens, headlands, outcrops, mountain meadows; 0-1700 m; Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr. (Labr.), N.W.T., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask.; Conn., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Maine, Mass., Minn., Mont., N.H., N.Y., Ohio, Pa., Vt., W.Va., Wis.

This species is distinguished by its dwarf size, densely pubescent branchlets, and narrow leaves which are entire and densely pubescent beneath. Our only authentic record for Indiana is that of a colony on the north slope of a wooded headland along Bear Creek near Fountain, Fountain County. The area where it is located is used as a summer resort and since the plant is exposed it will doubtless soon disappear. Associated with this species at this place was a form of it about 1 dm taller, with leaves all of a narrow form, and with fruit usually oblong, black, and without a bloom. I find in literature no reference to this form.

Colonial shrubs 2-5 dm; bud-scales sharply acute; lvs thin and soft, elliptic to lance-elliptic, 1-3(-4) cm, half or a third as wide, entire, softly hairy beneath, not glaucous; cor broadly cylindric, 4-5 mm, white or tinged with pink; fr blue- glaucous, 4-7 mm; 2n=24. Moist or dry soil and bogs; Lab. to B.C., s. to Pa., Ind., ne. Io., and Minn., and in the mts. to Va. and W.Va. May-July. (V. canadense; Cyanococcus c.)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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