this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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Science Memes

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submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
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[–] [email protected] 58 points 4 months ago (13 children)

Eggplants, potatoes, ground cherries, tomatillos, huckleberries are all edible too. That said you are right, if it is growing in the wild assume it will kill you. Don't eat it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (12 children)

Huckleberry varieties are all Nightshades? Does that mean blueberries are Nightshades?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (11 children)

Huckleberries and blueberries are not related closely at all. Huckleberries are in the nightshade family, Solanaceae. Blueberries are in the blueberry family, Ericaceae. Their morphologies, or growth forms, are very very different.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

You must be confused, or perhaps you're not talking about the same species that I am thinking about. Huckleberries, genus Gaylussacia, are definitely in the same family as blueberries, Vaccinium. They're both Ericaceae, in the subfamily Vaccinioideae. Gaylussacia is definitely not in Solanaceae.

Two species of blueberry as well as cranberry grow natively in a few bog habitats near my home, and huckleberries are also sympatric with these species.

ETA: I saw some context from other comments in this chain that somebody else already beat me to this. I, too, didn't realize that there were, if you were, "false" huckleberries in the nightshade family.

To add to both of our shared confusion, there is even a false huckleberry from within the blueberry family, but instead the Ericoideae subfamily: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/553849-Rhododendron-menziesii. I have no experience with this plant, or even really this subfamily, as it isn't exactly endemic to my neck of the woods.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

True or false, common names are confusing. Huckleberries are called huckleberries, regardless of family or genus. I wasn't confused, I was naive. Just didn't know that other plants were called huckleberries. Binomial nomenclature rocks.

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