Gaultheria cuneata
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Gaultheria cuneata' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Genus
Synonyms
- Gaultheria pyroloides var. cuneata Rehd. & Wills.
Infraspecifics
Other taxa in genus
- Gaultheria adenothrix
- Gaultheria antipoda
- Gaultheria codonantha
- 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 low evergreen shrub 1 to 11⁄2 ft high, of close compact habit; young shoots very downy. Leaves of firm, leathery texture, obovate, oblanceolate, or narrowly oval, pointed, wedge-shaped at the base, shallowly toothed, 1⁄2 to 11⁄8 in. long, 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 in. wide, dark glossy green and glabrous above, paler and dotted with dark glands beneath; stalk 1⁄16 in. long. Flowers produced from June onwards in a cluster of axillary racemes, each 1 to 11⁄2 in. long, near the end of the twigs; main flower-stalk minutely downy. Corolla white, nodding, urn-shaped, 1⁄4 in. long, with five small recurved lobes. Stamens ten, enclosed within the corolla, their stalks downy. Calyx whitish, five-lobed, the lobes triangular, 1⁄12 in. long, ciliate; ovary silky. Fruits snow-white, globose, and 3⁄8 in. wide. Seeds numerous, shining, brown. Bot. Mag., t. 8829.
Native of W. Szechwan, China; introduced in 1909 by Wilson, who found it ‘quite common on humus-clad rocks in moist woods’. It differs from G. miqueliana (q.v.) and pyroloides in the silky ovary and downy fruit; the latter, however, is hidden by the white fleshy calyx. The white ‘berries’ are ripe from August onwards and give the plant an interesting appearance. It is very hardy and makes a pretty, dwarf ground cover.
G itoana Hayata
Synonyms
G. merrilliana Hort
This species, a native of Formosa, is closely allied to G. cuneata but is most easily distinguished by its narrow leaves, {3/8} to {5/8} in. long, {1/8} to {1/4} in. wide. It was introduced from Formosa shortly before 1936 by K. Yashiroda, under his number 149, and was at first erroneously known in gardens as G. merrilliana, possibly because one of Yashiroda’s specimens of this gaultheria had been identified as Vaccinium merrillianum, a gaultheria-like species also found in Formosa. It has about the same garden value as G. cuneata but is dwarfer. If the two species were to be united it would be under the name G. itoana, which has priority.
