Plants densely colonial, frequently mat-forming; twigs of previous year green, terete, puberulent, not verrucose.
Leaf blades pale and glandular abaxially, bright green adaxially, elliptic to obovate, 5-18 × 3-9 mm, glaucous-coriaceous, margins entire, slightly revolute.
Pedicels 4-6 mm.
Flowers: corolla pinkish white, 3-5 mm; filaments puberulent.
Berries red, 8-10 mm diam.
2n = 24. Flowering late spring-early summer. Boreal taiga in jack-pine stands, muskegs, raised bogs, dry, rocky barrens, lichen woodlands, exposed habitats, heaths, high moors, headlands, tundras, cliffs, mountain summits; 0-1800 m; Greenland; St. Pierre and Miquelon; Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.W.T., N.S., Nunavut, Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask., Yukon; Alaska, Conn., Maine, Mass., Mich., Minn., N.H., Vt., Wis.; n Eurasia; circumboreal. The distribution of
Vacciniumvitis-idaea in North America extends from northwestern Greenland at 77° north latitude, south to Connecticut at 42° north latitude, and from 45° west longitude (southern tip of Greenland) west to 170° west longitude (Aleutian Islands); it is rare in Connecticut (not collected since the late 1800s), Massachusetts, Vermont, and Wisconsin. This species has been erroneously reported from New York; it hybridizes with
V. myrtillus in northern Europe, producing
V. ×
intermedium Ruthe. The hybrid might be anticipated in North America, but the two species are not known to occur together anywhere in the flora area.
