Plants→Lyonia→He-huckleberry (Lyonia ligustrina)

Like the few other Lyonia species in eastern North America, this is a Blueberry-like shrub, also in the Ericaceous Family. The genus was named after an American botanist and explorer of the late 18th century and early 19th century who was John Lyon. The glossy medium green leaves turn red-orange in autumn and the foliage then usually turns tan and persists on the plant through most of the winter. The white, nodding, globular bell-like flowers are borne in crowded, one-sided, terminal clusters in June. The dry fruit is a hard, brown, 5-celled, globular capsule maturing in September and persisting to late March. Its root system is shallow and lateral, forming rhizomes, and it is difficult to transplant. It grows at a medium rate of about 1.5 feet/year. It grows in swamps, bogs, wet meadows, in open, low alluvial woods and thickets, and along lakeshores from southern Maine down through central Florida over to eastern Texas with two spots in Oklahoma and one spot in western central Michigan.

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