ISHS Acta Horticulturae 346: V International Symposium on Vaccinium Culture
THE HIGHBUSH BLUEBERRY - A NEW CULTIVATED SPECIES |
| Authors: | V. Butkus, K. Pliszka |
| Abstract:
The current taxonomic classification of the wild highbush blueberries remains unsettled. The cultivated northern highbush blueberry is derived from three species Vaccinium australe Small, V. corymbosum L. and V. angustifolium Ait. Phenotypically, the highbush cultivars are closest to V. australe. Credit for the domestication of the highbush blueberry goes to Dr. Frederick Vernon Coville - U.S.D.A. botanist during the period 1888–1937. To commemorate Dr. Coville and apprize his pioneering work it is proposed to use the scientific name in Latin Vaccinium x covilleanum. The highbush blueberry a new cultivated species was introduced in North America, at the beginning of this century. Synonyms and common names of main species of the genus Vaccinium in some languages were compiled by Eynard (1967). This cultivated species name in English is "highbush blueberry" (Coville, 1910) Darrow, 1960, Eck et al. 1966, in German "kulturheidelbeere" in Italian "mirtillo gigante americano" (Eynard, 1967), in Polish "borówka wysoka" (Rejman and Pliszka, 1984), in Russian "golubika vysokaya" (Kolesnikov, 1973), "golubika vysokoroslaya" (Butkene and Butkus, 1979, Danilova, 1980 and Kurlovich, 1987) and "vysokoroslye blueberry" (Gorbunov, 1990) and in Lithuanian "sodine šilauoge" (Butkus et al., 1985), e.t.c. The scientific name in Latin of the highbush blueberry, was established by Linnaeus in 1783, from material collected by Peter Koln in eastern North America. The cultivated standard or northern highbush blueberry in Camp's (1945) terminology is derived from three species, the crown forming taxa Vaccinium australe Small, V. corymbosum L., and the lowbush species V. angustifolium Aiton. Phenotypically, the highbush cultivars are closest to V. australe sensu Camp. (Luby et al., 1991). Furthermore, the present highbush blueberry cultivars originated from a cross between selections of tetraploid species, mainly V. australe, with some V. corymbosum and V. angustifolium. Several authors have reported a successful hybridisation of V. uliginosum L. with tetraploid highbush blueberry (Rousi, 1963, Hiirsälmi, 1973, Pliszka et al., 1980, Butkene, 1990, and Gorbunov, 1990). The 'Aron' cv. was named and introduced in Finland from this hybridisation. The current taxonomic classification of wild highbush blueberries remains unsettled. The strongly polarised views of various taxonomists can be illustrated by noting that the species recognised by Camp (1945) are given as synonyms by Vander Kloet (1980) for his concept of V. corymbosum. His numerical, cytological and experimental | |
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