1. Vaccinium arboreum Marshall (farkleberry, sparkleberry)

V. arboreum var. glaucescens (Greene) Sarg.

Batodendron arboreum (Marshall) Nutt.

Pl. 375 f, g; Map 1645

Plants medium to tall shrubs or small trees 2–5 m tall. Bark brown, longitudinally furrowed, peeling in thin plates with age. Twigs sparsely to densely hairy, green or reddish-tinged, becoming gray with age. Leaf blades 20–55 mm long, 12–30 mm wide, thick and leathery, oblanceolate to broadly elliptic-obovate, the tip usually rounded (sometimes with a minute, abrupt point) or obtusely narrowed to a blunt point, the margins often with widely spaced, minute, glandular teeth; less commonly entire, otherwise glabrous or hairy, the upper surface glabrous, waxy and shiny, the undersurface dull, glabrous to sparsely hairy along the midvein. Inflorescences short racemes or of solitary flowers. Flower stalks 4–10 mm long, with a conspicuous collarlike joint at the junction with the flower, often at least the lowermost stalks with small, leaflike bracts at the base. Calyx lobes 0.7–1.0 mm long, the margins sparsely hairy toward the tip. Corollas 2.5–3.0 mm long, 3–4 mm in diameter, broadly urn-shaped to nearly bell-shaped, white, shallowly lobed, the lobes reflexed. Stamens not exserted, with 2 yellow spurs at the filament-anther junction, these slightly shorter than to about as long as the anther tubules, the filaments flattened, hairy along the margins, the anthers tapered to tubules 1.5–2.0 mm long. Styles 4–5 mm, slightly exserted. Fruits 6–10 mm in diameter, black, shiny, not glaucous. 2n=24. May–July.

Scattered to common in the Mississippi Lowlands, Ozark, and Ozark Border Divisions, extending into the Lincoln Hills Section of the Glaciated Plains (eastern [mostly southeastern] U.S. west to Kansas and Texas). Mesic to dry upland forests, margins of glades, and tops of bluffs, occasionally banks of streams or margins of swamps, on acidic substrates.

The berries of V. arboreum have a mealy flesh and are considered unpalatable.