The native shrub Lyonia ligustrina is a close relative of blueberries and huckleberries in the Ericaceae family that makes a name for itself by producing hard capsules around its seeds instead of tasty fruits like its cousins do. These capsules notably hang on through the winter, making it an easy plant to spot this week on the bank of Shank Painter Pond.
The he-huckleberry was named for this identifying feature, it seems, when someone rather unscientific decided that the shrub’s lack of succulent flesh meant that it couldn’t be a female (or was it that the small dangling nut-like berries made it definitively male?).
In fact, the flowers of L. ligustrina and of huckleberries (Gaylussacia spp.) are all perfect — that’s the horticulturists’ way of saying that they have both male and female sex organs. So, in short: a he-huckleberry isn’t a he, a huckleberry huckleberry isn’t a she, and though their names imply a relationship, and both can be found in the backwoods, neither has any interest in pollinating its cousin.
