General: Low, spreading shrub; stems 10-30 cm tall, not angled; young branches yellowish-green, minutely hairy; old branches greyish-red.
Leaves: Alternate, deciduous, from broadly egg-shaped to oval or elliptic, 0.4-3 cm long, 0.2-1.5 cm wide, rounded at tips, tapered at base, glabrous or minutely hairy, green above, lower surfaces pale or with slight bloom, strongly net-veined, margins entire, rolled under somewhat.
Flowers: Clusters of 1-4, in leaf axils; corollas pink, egg- to urn-shaped, 5-6 mm long, 4- to 5-lobed, the lobes curled back; calyces deeply 4- to 5-lobed, persistent on mature fruit; filaments glabrous; anthers awned, the pore-bearing terminal tubes about equaling the pollen sacs.
Fruits: Berries, globe-shaped, 5-8 mm wide, blue, with a bloom; edible and sweet.
Notes: Two subspecies are recognized in BC:
1. Leaves hairy................. ssp. pubescens (Wormsk. ex Hornem.) S.B. Young
Bogs, dry to wet rocky tundra, meadows, thickets and boggy forests in the lowland to alpine zones; frequent in coastal BC (ssp. occidentale), and in N BC (ssp. pubescens); circumboreal, N to AK, YT, and NT, E to NF and S to N MI, NY, and N CA; Eurasia.
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 alpine, circumpolar deciduous shrub (transcontinental in North America). Occurs on very moist to wet, nitrogen-poor soils within tundra, boreal, cool temperate, and cool mesothermal climates.
