[3] Gaylussacia brachycera is easily distinguished from other members of its genus by its leaves: they resemble those of boxwood (hence its name) and lack the resin glands typical of huckleberries.

A relict species nearly exterminated by the last ice age, box huckleberry is self-sterile, and is found in isolated colonies which reproduce clonally by extending roots.

[12] No further specimens were collected until 1845, when Spencer Fullerton Baird, a professor at Dickinson College,[10] discovered a colony near New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania.

In summarizing these discoveries in 1932, Wherry noted that many of the colonies were already known to local residents, who picked the berries for food, under names such as "juniper-berry", "ground-huckleberry", and "bear-huckleberry".

He called for more intensive effort on the part of the scientific community to make use of such local knowledge in determining plant geography.

[11] More recently, a colony of box huckleberry was discovered in Durham County, North Carolina, the first report from that state, in 2003.

[18] Most of the reported stations for box huckleberry fall within the Appalachian Mountains, ranging from central Pennsylvania in the north to eastern Tennessee in the south.

However, the specimens located in Maryland and Delaware were found on the Atlantic Coastal Plain,[10] and the single North Carolina station is in the Piedmont.

Its scattered distribution suggests that the species once spread more broadly across North America, but was almost eradicated by glacial advances, surviving only where it escaped the ice in protected refugia.

At one of the Delaware sites, a small portion of the colony extended to the wet margin of a marsh, but most was located on dry, sandy soil upslope.

[15] A colony of G. brachycera at Losh Run, in Perry County, Pennsylvania was found to be 6,500 feet (2,000 m) in extent when surveyed.

[21] Recent studies have attempted to determine whether, in fact, the reproduction of the colony (since heavily damaged by a forest fire in 1963 and road construction in the 1970s) has been entirely clonal.

[19] It is commonly marketed as 'Berried Treasure™' (the trademark symbol is not always present), and while the name gives the impression of being a cultivar, it is simply a clone of the wild colony.

[23] Briggs Nursery has developed a treasure chest logo and stylized title to accompany its marketing material for the plant.