All the blueberry growers in the northern states depend on varieties developed from this shrub. Breeders would pick bushes that had bigger berries or less problems with diseases and gradually develop improved blueberry bushes. Once a bush is improved and can be propagated it is named and sold. Murphy, Cabot, Collins, Stanley, Herbert, Katherine, Sam and Ivanhoe. In the wild this plant is very important to wildlife.
Birds adore the fruit.
Bears and other smaller mammels love it too. Deer and rabbits eat the foliage and twigs. As a landscaping plant the blueberry does well . It has nice red fall color. Here are the blooms, photographed the first spring the plants were in the garden.