 No further specimens were collected until 1845, when Spencer Baird, a professor at Dickinson College, discovered a colony near New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania. It was redesignated G. brachycera in 1846 by Asa Gray on the basis of Baird's specimens. (Gaylussacia was not recognized as a genus separate from Vaccinium until 1819.) The discovery brought about a friendship between Gray and Baird that ultimately resulted in the latter's appointment as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
