Gaultheria adenothrix
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Gaultheria adenothrix' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Synonyms
- Andromeda adenothrix Miq.
Other taxa in genus
- Gaultheria antipoda
- Gaultheria codonantha
- Gaultheria cuneata
- Gaultheria eriophylla
- Gaultheria forrestii
- Gaultheria fragrantissima
- Gaultheria hirtiflora
- Gaultheria hispida
- Gaultheria hispidula
- Gaultheria hookeri
- Gaultheria miqueliana
- Gaultheria mucronata
- Gaultheria nummularioides
- Gaultheria oppositifolia
- Gaultheria ovatifolia
- Gaultheria procumbens
- Gaultheria pyroloides
- Gaultheria rupestris
- Gaultheria shallon
- Gaultheria tetramera
- Gaultheria trichophylla
- Gaultheria wardii
- Gaultheria × wisleyensis
- Gaultheria yunnanensis
A dwarf shrub to about 1 ft high, spreading by underground runners; young stems zigzagged, reddish brown, clothed with gland-tipped hairs. Leaves leathery, dark green, conspicuously net-veined, broadly ovate, 5⁄8 to 11⁄4 in. long, 3⁄8 to 3⁄4 in. wide, acute or shortly acuminate at the apex, margins slightly saw-toothed towards the apex and edged with a few gland-tipped hairs. Flowers solitary in the upper leaf-axils, borne in May on wiry, pendulous peduncles, which are furnished with numerous bracteoles and clad, like the red-tinged calyces, with gland-tipped hairs. Corollas pure white, glabrous within, 5⁄16 in. long. Filaments of stamens glabrous; anthers without awns. Fruits globular, red, about 1⁄4 in. wide, the swollen calyx hairy.
Native of Japan in coniferous forests and open places near the tree-line; introduced in 1915. Botanically, it is quite distinct from any other Asiatic gaultheria and most closely allied to G. ovatifolia and G. humifusa of western N. America. It grows well at the Sunningdale Nurseries, in light shade.