This
may come as a shock when I tell you that there isn’t even a single
blueberry growing in the forests of Finland. Those “blue berries” that
we see are actually called bilberries. Both of those species are
included in the same family but their Latin names are different, making
them two different species. The Latin name for blueberry is Vaccinium cyanococcus and for the bilberry it’s Vaccinium myrtillus.
The
actual blueberries can be found in North-America and in some parts of
Europe and Asia. Bilberries grow predominantly in Europe but also in
Northern Asia, Western Canada, and the Western United States.
There
is a lot of confusion between the two berries since they are really
similar. The easiest way to tell which one is which is to look the
colour of the berry’s flesh. Bilberries are dark on the inside while
blueberries are light or translucent.
