General: Low, spreading, matted shrub; stems (5) 10-30 cm tall, rounded, yellowish-green to reddish bark, usually finely hairy.
Leaves: Alternate, deciduous, thin, prominently net-veined below, oblanceolate to egg-shaped, 1-3 cm long, 2-15 mm wide, tips pointed to blunt, tapered to the base, margins finely toothed in upper half, the teeth usually gland-tipped, light green on both surfaces.
Flowers: Solitary in leaf axils, nodding; flower stalks short, curved downward; corollas whitish to pink, narrowly tubular urn-shaped, 4-6 mm long, twice as long as wide; calyces obscurely lobed, the lobes very short, deciduous in fruit; filaments glabrous, longer than anthers; anthers awned, with slender terminal tubes.
Fruits: Berries, nearly globe-shaped, 5-8 mm wide, light blue to blackish-blue with a pale grey bloom; sweet and palatable.
Notes: A variable species sometimes separated into two or more varieties.
Dry to wet forests, bogs, meadows, rocky ridges and tundra in the lowland to alpine zones; common throughout BC; N to AK, YT, and NT, E to NF, and S to CA, CO, MN, and NY.
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, submontane to alpine, transcontinental North American deciduous shrub. Occurs in boreal and cool temperate climates on fresh to very moist, nitrogen-poor soils; its occurrence increases with increasing latitude and continentality.
