Arctous (Arctostaphylos) alpina

Arctostaphylos alpina, with the common names alpine bearberry, mountain bearberry, or black bearberry is a dwarf shrub in the heather family Ericaceae. The basionym of this species is Arbutus alpina L.

 

Arctostaphylos alpina is a procumbent shrub usually less than 6 inches (15 cm) high with a woody stem and straggling branches. The leaves are alternate and wither in the autumn but remain on the plant for another year. The leaves are stalked and are oval with serrated margins and a network of veins. They often turn red to scarlet in autumn. The flowers are in groups of two to five, white or pink and urn-shaped and about 3 to 5 mm long. They have five sepals, five fused petals with five small projecting lobes, ten stamens and a single carpel. The fruits are spherical, 9 to 12 mm long, initially green, then red and finally glossy black and succulent when ripe. This plant flowers in June.

 

Arctostaphylos alpina has a circumpolar distribution. It is found at high latitudes, from Scotland east across Scandinavia, Russia, Alaska, Northern Canada and Greenland. Its southern limits in Europe are the Pyrenees and the Alps, in Asia, the Altay Mountains and Mongolia, and in North America, British Columbia in the west, and Maine and New Hampshire in the east. Its natural habitat is moorland, dry forests with birch and pine and hummocks covered in moss at the edges of bogs.