Black huckleberry

The dark purple berry that feeds Glacier's bears and half the pancakes in Montana, growing on open and burned slopes all over the park.

Black huckleberry at a glance

Vaccinium membranaceum HUK-el-bear-ee; Vaccinium membranaceum is vak-SIN-ee-um mem-bray-NAY-see-um

Type
Plant · shrub
Diet
Producer
Size
A bush that can be anywhere from ankle-high to taller than a grown-up (0.1 to 2 m, USDA NRCS), with berries small enough to pick one at a time between two fingers.
Conservation
Not listed. Common and widespread; NPS counts six huckleberry species in Glacier.

It makes its own food from sunlight, and it needs bumblebees to move pollen between flowers before any berry can form. USGS and NPS work in Glacier found at least six bumblebee species visiting the park's huckleberries.

Is it safe to touch?

The berries are safe to eat, and picking a small amount for your own snack is allowed in most national parks (check the current Glacier rule at a visitor center first). The real caution is not the plant, it is who else is eating it. A berry patch in August is a bear's dinner table. Make noise, look before you push into brush, and if you see a bear feeding, back away and go somewhere else.

A grizzly bear eats a huckleberry on one slope in Glacier, walks for miles, and plants the next bush somewhere else, with fertilizer already attached. That is not a joke about bear droppings. It is how the plant gets around. NPS puts it plainly: huckleberry seeds are spread in bear scat, complete with the perfect fertilizer for germination. The bear gets the sugar, the plant gets a ride and a starter pile of compost, and neither one had to agree to anything. Berries can make up as much as 15 percent of what Glacier’s bears eat in a season, so the loop runs hard here.

Follow that loop and you can predict where the berries will be. Bears travel the open ground: avalanche chutes, burned hillsides, the sunny edges where the forest breaks. Huckleberry grows in exactly those places, because it is a shrub that needs light. So a slope of standing dead trees from an old fire is not an empty slope. In August it is often a wall of dark purple.

Between the bear and the berry there is a third animal doing the quiet part. A huckleberry flower is a small creamy-pink bell hanging under the twig, and it needs a bumblebee to move pollen from one flower to the next before any fruit can form. Researchers working in Glacier found at least six bumblebee species on the park’s huckleberries. No bees, no berries, no bear food. This is also why nobody can farm huckleberries. Growers have tried for decades and given up, which is why a small jar of huckleberry jam in a Montana gas station costs what a big jar of grape jelly does.

People here were harvesting these long before any of that was written down. The Blackfeet name for the huckleberry is Aapaawapsspi, and the berries were dried by the fire and stored like raisins to eat through winter. If you look at a plant list you will find the same species under three names: USDA calls it black huckleberry or thinleaf huckleberry, and the NPSpecies checklist for Glacier files it as tall huckleberry. One bush, three labels, and none of the names are wrong.

Find a patch and you can check the whole chain yourself. Look for the oval leaves with fine teeth along the edge, then look underneath the twigs, because that is where the berries hang, one at a time rather than in clusters. Then look at the ground for scat with seeds in it. That is the next generation of bushes, already planted. And before you push into the brush: make noise, and look. Something bigger may already be eating there.

Did you know?

  • The Blackfeet name for huckleberry is Aapaawapsspi. NPS records that the berries were used widely by the Blackfeet and other tribes, dried by the fire and kept like raisins for winter.
  • Huckleberries make up as much as 15 percent of what Glacier's bears eat, and the bears pay the plant back: the seeds pass through a bear and land in a pile of fertilizer, ready to sprout.
  • Nobody can farm them. Commercial growers have tried for decades and failed, which is part of why huckleberry jam costs what it costs. The plants depend on wild bumblebees, and researchers in Glacier are still building the first maps of when and where the berries ripen.

Common questions

Can I eat a huckleberry I find in the park?

Usually yes, in a small amount for your own snack, but check the current rule at a Glacier visitor center first. The bigger question is whether a bear is already eating that patch, so make noise and look before you walk into brush.

Why can't you buy huckleberries at a farm stand like blueberries?

Because nobody has managed to farm them. Growers have tried for decades. The plants depend on wild bumblebees and on wild mountain soil, so almost every huckleberry in a jar was picked by hand off a wild bush.

Why do huckleberries grow so well where a fire has been?

A burn opens the forest and lets sunlight reach the ground. Huckleberry is a shrub of open and burned slopes, so a hillside of standing dead trees is often a hillside of berries.

Is black huckleberry the same as tall huckleberry?

Yes. Vaccinium membranaceum goes by black huckleberry, thinleaf huckleberry, and tall huckleberry depending on which list you read.

Where it lives

Where we got this