General: Erect or spreading shrub, 1-3 m tall; old branches with purplish-red bark; young twigs and stalks greyish-hairy and usually distinctly bristly with longer, scattered, glandular hairs.
Leaves: Alternate, evergreen, egg- or lance-shaped to elliptic, 2-5 cm long, 1-2.5 cm wide, narrowed at the tip, finely greyish-hairy, especially beneath; stalks about 5 mm long.
Flowers: In terminal clusters, densely hairy, bracts lance-shaped, 5-15 mm long, usually exceeding stalks; corollas urn-shaped, 6-7 mm long, white or pinkish; ovaries hairy.
Fruits: Berries, blackish-red, 6-8 mm wide; nutlets coarsely reticulate-pitted on the back.
Notes: Hybrids often occur between this species and A. uva-ursi, where the two grow together (A. x media Greene).
Ecological Framework for Arctostaphylos columbiana
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 montane, Pacific North American evergreen shrub. Occurs in maritime summer-dry cool mesothermal climates on very dry to moderately dry, nitrogen-poor soils (Mor humus forms). Occasional in open-canopy, young-seral Douglasfir forests, more frequent in the open and in clearings, on shallow, strongly drained soils on rock outcrops and upper slopes. An oxylophytic species characteristic of moisture-deficient sites.
