Sparkleberry
Vaccinium arboreum
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Sparkleberry grows from central Florida westward to eastern Texas, northward to southern Illinois, and eastward to Virginia. It's rare in Kentucky, Virginia, Illinois, and Indiana. Some reports say that it grows in parts of Mexico and the West Indies. Sparkleberry prefers moist soils and partial to full sun.
Fruit: A 5-8 mm wide, black, shiny berry. They are sweet but dry, hard, and mealy. Sparkleberries produce fruit erratically, with abundant fruit in some years little to none in others. The fruit ripens over a relatively long period and persists on the tree into the winter months after ripening.
Flowers: A 1/4", white to pinkish, bell-shaped flower arranged in leafy-bracted racemes. They bloom abundantly in late spring or summer.
Uses: The wood was used to make tool handles and craft items in the past. Sparkleberry is an attractive ornamental for its flowers, though the fruit is inedible to humans.
Ethnobotany: The bark used to be used in tanning leathers. Extracts from the roots were historically used to treat diarrhea.
Importance to wildlife: The leaves and twigs are a food source for white-tailed deer, hares, and rabbits. The fruit and flowers are eaten by many species of birds and mammals.
The bark of a sparkleberry. Bark is gray to grayish-brown, thin, and smooth with narrow ridges,
A single leaf on a sparkleberry. Leaves are evergreen or tardily deciduous. They are 2-7 cm long, leathery, rounded or short pointed at the apex, wedge shaped at base, glossy and glabrous above, and either glabrous or hair below.
The underside of a sparkleberry leaf. Slight hairs are visible especially along the midrib.
Leaf arrangement on a sparkleberry. Leaves are simple and alternate.
A bud on a sparkleberry. Buds are 1-2 mm long, nearly globose, reddish brown to reddish purple, and glabrous.
The twig of a sparkleberry. Twigs are reddish brown to grayish brown and glabrous or thinly hairy.
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