Bilberry
vaccinium myrtillus
Ericaceae

AKA
Black Whortles
huckleberry
hurtleberry
Hurts
Trackleberry
whortleberry
Whinberry

PLANETS: Jupiter and Pluto

Religious

PARTS USED
ripe fruit and leaves

HABITAT
Europe,including Britain, Siberia and Barbary.

DESCRIPTION
Vaccinium myrtillus grows abundantly in our heathy and mountainous
districts, a small branched shrub, with wiry angular branches,
rarely over a foot high, bearing globular wax-like
flowers and black berries, which are covered when quite
ripe with a delicate grey bloom, hence its name in Scotland,
'Blea-berry,' from an old North Country word, 'blae,'
meaning livid or bluish.
The name Bilberry (by some old writers' 'Bulberry')
is derived from the Danish 'bollebar,' meaning dark berry.

There is a variety with white fruits.
The leathery leaves
(in form somewhat like those of the myrtle, hence its specific name)
are at first rosy, then yellowish-green, and in autumn turn
red and are very ornamental.
They have been utilized to adulterate tea.

Bilberries flourish best on high grounds, being therefore more abundant
in the north and west than in the south and east of England:
they are absent from the low-lying Cambridgeshire and Suffolk,
but on the Surrey hills, where they are called 'Hurts,'
cover the ground for miles.

Fruit is globular, with a flat top, about the size of a black currant.
When eaten raw, they have a slightly acid flavour.

When cooked, however, with sugar, they make an excellent preserve.
Gerard tells us that 'the people of Cheshire do eate the black whortles
in creame and milke as in these southern parts we eate strawberries.'
On the Continent, they are often employed for coloring wine.

Stewed with a little sugar and lemon peel in an open tart,
Bilberries make a very enjoyable dish.

Before the War, immense quantities of them were imported annually
from Holland, Germany and Scandinavia.
They were used mainly by pastry cooks and restaurant-keepers.

Owing to its rich juice, the Bilberry can be used with the least quantity
of sugar in making jam: half a pound of sugar to the pound of berries
is sufficient if the preserve is to be eaten soon.

The minuteness of the seeds makes them more suitable
for jam than currants.

OTHER SPECIES
Vaccinium arboreum, or Farkleberry.
This is the most astringent variety, and both berries and root-bark may
be used internally for diarrhea, chronic dysentery, etc.
The infusion is valuable as a local application in sore throat,
chronic ophthalmia, leucorrhoea, etc.

Vaccinium resinosum, vaccinium damusum, vaccinium gorymbosum
have properties resembling those of vaccinium myrtillus.

Bilberry Jam
Put 3 pounds of clean, fresh fruit in a preserving pan
with one and a half pound of sugar and about 1 cupful
of water and bring to the boil.
Then boil rapidly for 40 minutes.

Apple juice made from windfalls and peelings,
instead of the water, improves this jam.
To make apple juice, cover the apples with water,
stew down, and strain the juice through thick muslin.

Blackberries may also be added to this mixture.

If the jam is to be kept long it must be bottled hot
in screw-top jars, or, if tied down in the ordinary way,
more sugar must be added.

Bilberry juice yields a clear, dark-blue or purple dye that has
been much used in the dyeing of wool and the picking of berries
for this purpose, as well as for food, constitutes a summer industry
in the 'Hurts' districts.
Owing to the shortage of the aniline dyestuffs formerly
imported from Germany, Bilberries were eagerly bought up
at high prices by dye manufacturers during the War,
so that in 1917 and 1918 a large proportion of the Bilberry crop
was not available for jam-making, as the dyers were scouring
the country for the little blue-black berries.


BLOOD-CLEANSING TEA
CONDITIONS
CULINARY
PET CAUTION


The Bog Bilberry
vaccinium uliginosum


SOURCE(S)
"A Modern Herbal"
Full Moon Paradise
The Daily Guide



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