Small, fruit-bearing, branching shrub of the genus Gaylussacia , in the heath family , resembling in habit the English bilberry , to which it is closely related.
It bears fleshy fruit with 10 nutlike seeds, differing in this respect from the blueberry . The common huckleberry of the northern U.S. is G. baccata , also called black, or highbush, huckleberry. The florists', or evergreen, huckleberry is actually a blueberry. The red huckleberry of the southern U.S. is commonly called the southern cranberry.