General: Deciduous, trailing shrub; stems reclining, 1-3 m long, often rooting at the nodes, forming small tubers, and producing erect branches to 60 cm high; twigs slightly short-hairy.
Leaves: Opposite, on stalks 1-3 mm long, egg-shaped to elliptic, 1-3 cm long, 0.5-2 cm wide, entire or sometimes with a few coarse teeth or shallow lobes; leaves on vigorous shoots often larger and more frequently toothed or lobed, slightly hairy at least beneath.
Flowers: Inflorescence a short terminal cluster of a few flowers, sometimes also a few flowers in the upper leaf axils; corollas widely and often asymmetrically bell-shaped, pale pink, 3-5 mm long, tubular at the bases, flaring to 5 lobes almost as long as the tubes; tubes with collars of short hairs around the top inside; styles 2-3 mm long, glabrous, about as long as the tubes; stamens as long as corolla lobes, the anthers 1 mm long, a little shorter than the filaments.
Fruits: Berrylike drupes, clustered, white, nearly globose, 5-6 mm long; nutlets 2, each enclosing a single seed.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
A shade-intolerant, submontane to subalpine. Western North American shrub distributed more in the Pacific than the Cordilleran region. Occurs in maritime to submaritime summer-dry cool mesothermal climates on very dry to moderately dry, nitrogen-medium soils. Its occurrence decreases with increasing latitude, elevation, precipitation, and continentality. Sporadic in opencanopy Douglas-fir forests on water-shedding sites. Often associated with Campanula scouleri, Lonicera ciliosa, L. hispidula, Mahonia aquifolium, M. nervosa, and Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus. Characteristic of moisture-deficient sites.
