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Bog bilberry

 

 

 

It is nice to be able to compare bog bilberries and bilberries; they are dwarf shrubs from the same genus (Vaccinum) – if the bog bilberry can grow up to your waist in favourable locations then the bilberry comes to the knees. Both are deciduous or leafless in winter; the leaf colour of bog bilberries is greenish-bluish, that of bilberries bright green.

 

The bog bilberry berries are more blue than those of the bilberry, and are not quite as round as bilberries. In taste the bog bilberries are inferior to bilberries but in other properties and values there is no difference – so worth picking. The berries of bog bilberry ripen when the bilberries are fully ripe and they smear the picker’s fingers much less on picking.

 

On very rare occasions the berries can have a mildly intoxicating effect on some people.

 

Bilberry