Gaylussacia

Gaylussacia is a genus of about fifty species of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae, native to the Americas, where they occur in eastern North America and in South America in the Andes and the mountains of southeastern Brazil (the majority of the known species). Common English names include huckleberry (shared with plants in several other genera) and "dangleberry".

Gaylussacia
Gaylussacia pulchra[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Ericales
Family: Ericaceae
Subfamily: Vaccinioideae
Tribe: Vaccinieae
Genus: Gaylussacia
Kunth
Type species
Gaylussacia buxifolia
Kunth

Gaylussacia plants are often a component of an oak-heath forest.[2][3] They are deciduous or evergreen shrubs growing to a height of 0.4–1.8 metres (1 ft 4 in–5 ft 11 in).

Ecology

Gaylussacia species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) species including Coleophora gaylussaciella (which feeds exclusively on Gaylussacia) and Coleophora multicristatella.

Classification

Gaylussacia is named in honor of the French chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778–1850). It is closely related to Vaccinium,[4] and it is still unclear whether the commonly understood line between Vaccinium and Gaylussacia is justified.[5] A 2002 paper found that molecular data did not support past divisions of Gaylussacia into sections.[4]

Species
Gaylussacia brasiliensis

References
  1. 1827 illustration from Plantarum Brasiliae icones et descriptiones hactenus ineditae. Vol. 1. Author: Johann Baptist Emanuel Pohl
  2. The Natural Communities of Virginia Classification of Ecological Community Groups (Version 2.3), Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, 2010 Archived January 15, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  3. Schafale, M. P. & A. S. Weakley (1990). "Classification of the natural communities of North Carolina" (PDF) (third approximation ed.). North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-04-25.
  4. Floyd, Jennifer Whitehead (2002). "Phylogenetic and biogeographic patterns in Gaylussacia (Ericaceae) based on morphological, nuclear DNA, and chloroplast DNA variation". Systematic Botany. 27 (1): 99–115. doi:10.1043/0363-6445-27.1.99. JSTOR 3093898.
  5. Kathleen A. Kron, E. Ann Powell and J. L. Luteyn (2002). "Phylogenetic relationships within the blueberry tribe (Vaccinieae, Ericaceae) based on sequence data from matK and nuclear ribosomal ITS regions, with comments on the placement of Satyria". American Journal of Botany. 89 (2): 327–336. doi:10.3732/ajb.89.2.327. PMID 21669741.
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