''Vaccinium consanguineum'' or Costa Rican blueberry is a species of ''

Vaccinium ''Vaccinium'' is a common and widespread genus of shrubs or dwarf shrubs in the heath family (Ericaceae). The fruits of many species are eaten by humans and some are of commercial importance, including the cranberry, blueberry, bilberry (whort ...

'' found in the montane forests of southern Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama at altitudes of 2100-3100 meters

AMSL Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

. In Costa Rica it is found in the Talamanca mountain range and the Central Volcanic mountain range.

Description

Vaccinium consanguineum is an

arborescent A rhizome is a concept in post-structuralism describing a nonlinear network that "connects any point to any other point". It appears in the work of French theorists Deleuze and Guattari, who used the term in their book ''A Thousand Plateaus'' to ...

shrub 0.5-10m tall (on average 1-3m tall) whose very woody stems are first puberulent in appearance, and become

glabrous Glabrousness (from the Latin ''glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...

with age. Leaves narrow or broadly elliptic, occasionally oblong, 1-4.6cm long and 0.5-1.2cm wide, acute basally, gradually acute at apex,

serrulate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular o ...

to crenate-serrate marginally, glabrous. Puberulent along midrib below,

pinnately Pinnation (also called pennation) is the arrangement of feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis. Pinnation occurs in biological morphology, in crystals, such as some forms of ice or metal crystals, and in ...

veined; the petiole is 1.5 to 3.0 mm. Its infloresence is a

raceme A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the s ...

, with several flowers; the

rachis In biology, a rachis (from the grc, ῥάχις [], "backbone, spine") is a main axis or "shaft". In zoology and microbiology In vertebrates, ''rachis'' can refer to the series of articulated vertebrae, which encase the spinal cord. In this c ...

is 1 to 4 cm; the

pedicel Pedicle or pedicel may refer to: Human anatomy *Pedicle of vertebral arch, the segment between the transverse process and the vertebral body, and is often used as a radiographic marker and entry point in vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty procedures ...

is 1 to 2 mm long, it is articulated with the calyx; the flowers have the

hypanthium In angiosperms, a hypanthium or floral cup is a structure where basal portions of the calyx, the corolla, and the stamens form a cup-shaped tube. It is sometimes called a floral tube, a term that is also used for corolla tube and calyx tube. It ...

of 1.0 to 1.6 mm, glabrous, with lobes of 0.8 to 1.5 mm, apically

ciliate The ciliates are a group of alveolates characterized by the presence of hair-like organelles called cilia, which are identical in structure to flagellum, eukaryotic flagella, but are in general shorter and present in much larger numbers, with a ...

or glabrous; the corolla is cylindrical and from 5.0 to 7.5 mm, glabrous on the outside and white with pink or reddish tints sometimes;

theca In biology, a theca (plural thecae) is a sheath or a covering. Botany In botany, the theca is related to plant's flower anatomy. The theca of an angiosperm consists of a pair of microsporangia that are adjacent to each other and share a commo ...

e with two apical spurs; the tubules 1.2 to 1.8 mm. The fruit it produces is edible, and is characterized by being spherical in shame, 5 to 6 mm in diameter, glabrous, reddish to purple-black when ripe. It contains numerous small seeds and a small amount of pulp.

Cultivation

The plant takes advantage of disturbed areas and edges of the oak forest or

páramo Páramo () can refer to a variety of alpine tundra ecosystems located in the Andes Mountain Range, South America. Some ecologists describe the páramo broadly as "all high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline". A narrower ...

for its development, where it is common to find it. Its flowering coincides with the

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the sea ...

, and its fruiting with the beginning of the

dry season The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The te ...

, therefore it is common to find its fruits in December and February, even until April, when its flowering ends. It reproduces easily from its rhizome, which is used as a dispersal method in nature, similarly to species of the ''

Rubus ''Rubus'' is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, subfamily Rosoideae, with over 1,350 species. Raspberries, blackberries, and dewberries are common, widely distributed members of the genus. Most of these ...

'' genus.

Usage

The fruit can be consumed directly, or used for the manufacture of juice and jelly, which acquires a consistency very similar to that produced with

blackberry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy of ...

fruits, but which does not differ in flavor from the jelly produced with other more common species of the genus ''

''.

Risks

The fruit of V. consanguineum can be confused with the fruit of a very similar looking species ', which possesses a toxic compound tentatively named pernettine.

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q15241046 consanguineum Cloud forest flora of Mexico Flora of Central America