Sargent, Charles S. 1889. Vaccinium hirsutum. Gard. & Forest. 2: 364, 365, fig. 119.
Ericaceae
Species Description - Plants crown-forming or rarely suckering to form colonies 1 m. or more in diameter, 1.5-3(rarely 4) m. high. Leaves pale green, rarely subglaucous; the lower surface non-glandular, glabrous or often pubescent on the midvein, rarely pubescent over the surface; ovate-elliptic, sometimes long-acuminate, 2-3 cm. wide, 5-7 cm. long, the margin sharply serrate or in some forms subentire. Corolla cylindro-campanulate, 5-6 mm. long, greenish-white, often tinged with pink. Fruit 6-10 mm. in diameter, usually dark, sometimes 1lack, or in many forms subglaucous, rarely markedly glaucous, usually of a pleasantly subacid flavor.
Introduced into cultivation at Belts- ville, Maryland, in 1941.
Cyanococcus simulatus Small, Man. SE. Fl. 1015, 1507. 1933.
Tetraploid (2n = 48).
As noted in the discussion of the preceding species, V. simulatum gives every evidence of being an autopolyploid derivative of V. pallidum. For the general aspect of the plant, see figure 13. The usual homogeneity of simulatum is dis- turbed only where it meets (or has made contact in the past with) other plants which have hybridized with it. At the southern edge of its range it has ex- changed genes with the tallapusae phase of V. alto-moatanum; and one locality is known in Virginia where it has hybridized with V. lamarckii. The principal source of aberrancies in simulatum appears to be the "Blue Ridge phase" of V. alto-montanum, for careful checking in the field indicates that reciprocal gene-exchanges have taken place between them, thus accouniting for the glaucous phases of simulatum which also are usually lower-statured plants, occasionally in colonies several meters in diameter, and often with more narrowly elliptic and sometimes subserrate, or even (rarely) entire-margined, leaves.
The material from the region of Black Mountain, Kentucky, also tends to be entire-leafed, but much of it is also more pubescent than is typical for any other segmient of V. simulatum. It may be observed in the field that the leaves of these plants also tend to have a slightly deeper green color and to be firmer-textured than is usual. These aberrant characters seem to have been derived from V. arkansanum during the Pleistocene at a time when members of arkansanum and simulatum were hybridizing and forming one segment of the population which later became V. corymbosum. An examination of the geography of the Pleisto- cene will indicate the ease with which members of the simulatum population could have moved northward and westward along drainage lines to meet those portions of the arkansanum population then moving eastward. At such a time, genes of arkansanum could have migrated into the simulatum population which, since, has again moved back into the mountains. So far as is known, V. arkan- sanum is the only known plant which has any reasonable chance of contributing these aberrancies to V. simulatum. This hypothesis is further strengthened by the presence today of arkawsartum-like and simulatum-like plants (as well as plants with "blended" characteristics) in the south-central segment of corymbo- sum. These items will be discussed further under species 22, V. corymbosutm.
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