Vaccinium reticulatum is a rhizomatous shrub with aerial shoots that are stiffly erect, growing to a height of 10–200 cm. The twigs of the current season are often pubescent, occasionally glaucous, or both glaucous and pubescent. The leaves are simple and alternate, with blades that are ovate to obovate or rarely elliptic and measure 1–3 cm long and wide. The surfaces of the leaves can be pubescent, glaucous, or both, with persistent and coriaceous blades. The margins are sharply serrate to entire, flat, or strongly revolute. The leaves are short-petiolate and lack stipules. The flowers are in bracteate axillary racemes and are bisexual (perfect). The pedicels are 1–3 cm long. The calyx is (4)5-lobed, glabrous, glaucous, or pubescent when young, with deltate lobes that are shorter or sometimes as long as the tube at anthesis and are persistent. The corolla is (4)5-lobed, red, yellow, yellow with red stripes, or greenish yellow, urceolate to cylindrical, 8–12 mm long, and can be glabrous, puberulent, or pubescent. There are (8)10(12) stamens with filaments inserted at the disk’s outer margin or near the corolla tube’s base. The anther sacs have tubules, and the anthers become inverted during development, making the morphological base the apparent apex and dithecal. The ovary is inferior with axile placentation, a single hollow style, a fluted cavity aligned with the cells, and a wet, obtuse stigma. The fruits are berries that can be red, reddish-purple, bluish-purple, dull black, yellow, orangish-yellow, yellowish green, or pink, measuring 8–14 mm in diameter. The seeds are small and numerous (70–120), ellipsoid, with a smooth and thin seed coat. The endosperm is firm-fleshy, well-developed, oily, and proteinaceous. It is found in disturbed sites, lava flows, ash dunes, cinder beds, or exposed sites such as alpine or subalpine shrubland between 640-3,700 meters.