The Gardens host 5 types of native huckleberries: Cascade, Mountain, Oval-Leafed, Evergreen, and Red, also respectively called: Cascade, Square-Twig Blueberry, Alaska Blueberry, California, and Red Huckleberry. The latter is the most common; the Red Huckleberry is a shrub, often growing out of fallen logs or old stumps. Leaves fall off each Autumn, the fruit is a very bright red and is/was used as a food source by Native Americans either fresh or dried. The list of uses for huckleberries in the Native American Ethnobotanical Database (“NAEB”) has over 200 citations. An ancient specimen of the Red Huckleberry is found by Kiosk 8 between the Sitka Spruce (largest tree in the Gardens) and a legacy sized Bitter Cherry. PLC’s sponsored WWU SAM Project’s extinction probability is slight for these native plants <.001% with the observations that after most mature cherries and spruce are cut down, they are replaced by Douglas Fir; logging practices today do not leave stumps on which Red Huckleberries grow.
http://naeb.brit.org/uses/search/?string=red+huckleberry
https://plants.usda.gov/home/plantProfile?symbol=VADE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccinium_membranaceum
https://www.plc215.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Kiosk-08.pdf
https://burkeherbarium.org/imagecollection/taxon.php?Taxon=Vaccinium
https://www.burkemuseum.org/collections-and-research/biology/plants-and-fungi/collections-database/results.php?Genus=Vaccinium&Species=deliciosum
Primary Level Question
The most common color for a huckleberry berry is
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