General: Matted, low shrub; stems 10-25 cm tall, many, slender, broomlike, strongly angled, greenish or yellowish-green, glabrous.
Leaves: Alternate, deciduous, lance-egg-shaped to oval, to 12 mm long, tips pointed to sharp-pointed, bases rounded to wedge-shaped, light-green, finely toothed, glabrous, shiny above, dull and conspicuously veined below.
Flowers: Solitary in leaf axils; flower stalks 2-2.5 mm long, nodding; corollas pinkish, narrowly urn-shaped, about 4 mm long; calyces very shallowly lobed, almost obsolete; filaments glabrous; anthers awned, the pore-bearing terminal tubes about equal to the pollen sacs.
Fruits: Berries, globe-shaped, 3-5 mm wide, bright red; edible and sweet.
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-tolerant/intolerant, montane to alpine, Cordilleran North American deciduous shrub (marginal in the Central region). Occurs in continental alpine tundra and subalpine boreal climates on nitrogenÂpoor soils; its occurrence is restricted to the eastern part of the coast-interior ecotone.
