Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Ericales > Ericaceae > Gaultheria > Gaultheria humifusa

Gaultheria humifusa (alpine spicywintergreen; western wintergreen)

Synonyms: Brossaea myrsinites; Gaultheria myrsinites; Vaccinium humifusum (homotypic); Vaccinium obtusum

Wikipedia Abstract

Gaultheria humifusa is a species of shrub in the heath family which is known by the common names alpine wintergreen and alpine spicy wintergreen. It is native to western North America, from British Columbia to California to Colorado, where it grows in moist subalpine mountain forests. It is a low, spreading shrub which may be quite small, forming flat patches on the ground or amongst rock and leaf litter. The stems are less than 20 centimeters in length and have small oval-shaped leaves one to two centimeters long. It bears solitary bell-shaped flowers with white to light pink corollas and golden anthers which, after pollination, mature into bright to dull red berrylike fruit capsules. The leaves and fruit of Gaultheria humifusa are edible.
View Wikipedia Record: Gaultheria humifusa

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Low
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [2]  Hermaphrodite
Leaf Type [2]  Evergreen
Lifespan [3]  Perennial
Pollinators [2]  Insects, Lepidoptera
Structure [2]  Shrub
Usage [2]  A ground cover plant for positions in the sun or light shade. A black dye has been made from the plant;
Height [2]  3.937 inches (0.1 m)
Width [2]  12 inches (0.3 m)
View Plants For A Future Record : Gaultheria humifusa

Protected Areas

Predators

Colias pelidne (pelidne sulphur)[4]

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
3USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
4HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0