Blueberries are flowering plants in the genus Vaccinium section Cyanococcus and are closely related to cranberries, huckleberries and lingonberries. True wild blueberries grow naturally only in North America. However the plant has been cultivated since the early 1900s and blueberries are now farm-grown in at least 16 countries around the world.

The blueberry is botanically speaking an epigynous or “false” berry 5-16 mm in diameter with a flared "crown" at the end. The berries are white or pale greenish at first, then reddish-purple, and finally indigo on ripening. Blueberry plants typically bear fruit from May through October.

Blueberry plants are shrubs varying in size from 10cm tall to 4m tall. The smaller species are known as "lowbush blueberries", and the larger species as "highbush blueberries". All cultivated, farm-grown blueberry plants are of the highbush variety and produce the bigger, plumper berries that we usually see sold fresh. Lowbush or “wild” blueberries tend to produce smaller fruit that is more often sold frozen or used as ingredients in other products.

For centuries, blueberries were gathered from the forests and the bogs by Native North Americans and consumed fresh or preserved. Efforts in the early 1900's by Elizabeth White and Dr. Frederick Coville to domesticate the wild highbush blueberry resulted in today's cultivated highbush blueberry industry. They selected desirable plants from the wild forests and cultivated them to develop blueberries that could be commercially grown by farmers.

The vast majority of global blueberry production is in Canada and the United States. British Columbia and Michigan are the world’s leading producers of farm-grown blueberries. Quebec and Maine are the top producers of wild blueberries. Total worldwide production now exceeds 500 million pounds annually.

Blueberries have a diverse range of micronutrients with notably high levels of the essential dietary mineral iron, and antioxidant vitamins C and E. Especially in wild species, blueberries contain anthocyanins, other antioxidant pigments and various phytochemicals possibly having a role in reducing risks of some diseases including cancers.

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