Shrubs or small trees, terrestrial or epiphytic. Leaves evergreen or deciduous, rarely pseudoverticillate, petiolate, margin entire or serrate. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, racemose, fasciculate, or solitary flowers. Bracts and bracteoles persistent or caducous, the latter small, basal, rarely apical; pedicel expanded towards apex or not, articulate, rarely continuous. Flowers 5-, rarely 4-merous. Calyx limb lobed or toothed. Corolla urceolate, campanulate, or tubular, lobed or toothed, usually to base of limb; lobes erect or recurved, mostly shorter than tube, rarely longer or petals apparently free. Stamens rarely 4, usually included; anthers with 2 spurs at anther-filament junction or not; thecae with tubules opening by a terminal pore or introrse slit. Disk annular. Ovary inferior, usually 8- or 10-pseudoloculed by false partitions; locule with many ovules; stigma inconspicuous, truncate. Fruit a several seeded globose berry. Seeds ovoid, small, testa hard or mucilaginous.

The limits of Vaccinium are very uncertain. Recent molecular work, supported by morphology and anatomy, suggests that it is likely that the majority of Chinese species, i.e., those with 10-pseudoloculed ovaries, form part of the same lineage as Agapetes.

Vaccinium cavaleriei H. Léveillé & Vaniot is a synonym of Schoepfia jasminodora Siebold & Zuccarini var. jasminodora in the Olacaceae (see Fl. China 5: 203. 2003).

About 450 species: throughout the N hemisphere, also in the mountains of tropical Asia and Central and South America, a few species in Africa and Madagascar; 92 species (51 endemic) in China.

(Authors: Fang Ruizheng (方瑞征 Fang Rhui-cheng); Peter F. Stevens)