Vaccinium smallii ("Sunoki")

Japanese name: スノキ （酢の木）
Scientific name: Vaccinium smallii

[Overview]
A deciduous shrub 1–2 m tall, found in forests and at forest edges in hills and low mountains.
Young branches are slightly ridged, with short hairs growing in rows.
The leaves are simple and alternate, ovate to elliptic, 1.3–3.5 cm long and 0.6–2 cm wide, but highly variable.
The midrib on the underside of the leaf and the petiole have sparse, very short hairs, or are hairless.
The leaf margin has fine, hooked serrations.
The petiole is very short.
The leaves taste sour when chewed.
The flowers, 1–4 in number, hang downward in racemes 1–2 cm long borne at the tips of the previous year's branches.
The corolla is reddish yellow-green and bell-shaped, about 0.5 cm long, shallowly 5-lobed at the tip.
The tips of the lobes curl back.
There are 10 stamens, which do not protrude from the corolla.
The calyx tube is not ridged.
The fruit is a spherical berry 0.6–0.7 cm in diameter, ripening glossy black; it is sweet-sour and edible.

[Notes]
The Japanese name comes from the sour taste of the leaves.

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