Vaccinium bracteatum ("Shashanbo")

Japanese name: シャシャンボ （小小ん坊）
Scientific name: Vaccinium bracteatum

[Overview]
An evergreen shrub growing 2–5 m tall, found in secondary forests of laurel forest in low mountains and in Japanese red pine woods.
Young branches are at first covered with short soft hairs.
Leaves are simple and alternate, elliptic to broadly elliptic, 3–8 cm long and 1–4 cm wide, thick and leathery, with a sharply pointed tip and shallow, blunt teeth on the margin, and a short leaf stalk.
On the main vein on the underside of the leaf there are several tiny protrusions that catch when you run a finger over them.
Racemes 3–8 cm long emerge from the leaf axils, bearing many drooping flowers.
The flowers are white, slender and urn-shaped with 5 shallow lobes.
There are 10 stamens.
Short soft hairs grow densely on the flower stalks and calyx.
The fruit is a round berry about 0.5 cm across that ripens to a blackish purple with a whitish bloom; it is sweet-sour and edible.

[Cultivation]
Propagate from seed.
Cuttings are also possible, although the rooting rate is poor.
When growing from seed, wash fully ripe fruit with water to remove the pulp and sow immediately, or bury the seeds in moist vermiculite or similar so they do not dry out, store them in a cool dark place, take them out the following spring, and wash them well with water once more before sowing.
It prefers sunny, well-drained, moderately moist acidic soil.
It tolerates up to about bright shade.
For potted plants, water thoroughly when the soil surface dries; for plants in the ground, rainfall is sufficient unless sunny weather continues and the soil dries out.
Apply an organic fertilizer in winter, and a slow-release chemical fertilizer after flowering as a thank-you fertilizer.
There are no particular pests or diseases.

[Notes]
Theories on the origin of the Japanese name include that it is a corruption of "Sasanbo" (小小ん坊) because of the small fruit, and that it is a corruption of sashibu (烏草樹), the old name of Shashanbo.

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