General: Low, trailing shrub, to 3 cm tall; stems prostrate or ascending, to 10 cm long, glabrous or finely-hairy, sometimes with longer, reddish hairs, not glandular.
Leaves: Alternate, evergreen, leathery, broadly egg-shaped or oval to nearly elliptic, 1-2 (2.5) cm long, 0.5-1.5 cm wide, rounded to blunt at tips, entire to inconspicuously toothed, margins thickened.
Flowers: Solitary in leaf axils; flower stalks short, with 3-5 bractlets; corollas bell-shaped, 5-lobed, pinkish, 3-4 mm long; calyces glabrous, cleft to near the middle; stamens included, anthers opening by terminal pores, without awns.
Fruits: Berrylike, reddish, globe-shaped, fleshy, 5-7 mm wide.
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, subalpine to alpine, Western North American evergreen shrub distributed equally in the Pacific and Cordilleran regions. Occurs in alpine tundra and subalpine boreal climates on fresh to very moist, nitrogen-poor soils. Common in non-forested (heath and krummholz) and open-canopy forested communities on water-shedding sites with prolonged snow-lie. Often grows with Rhododendron albijlorum and Vaccinium membranaceum. An oxylophytic species characteristic of Mor humus forms.
