Gaultheria mucronata (L.f.) Hook. & Arn.

An evergreen shrub 2 to 5 ft high, spreading freely by suckers and forming ultimately a dense, low thicket; young branches thin and wiry, sometimes furnished with a few appressed, forward-pointing bristles or short down, but usually becoming glabrous in a short time. Leaves alternate, dense upon the branches, ovate to oblong, very shortly stalked, 1⁄3 to 3⁄4 in. long, 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 in. wide, toothed and spiny-pointed, hard in texture, lateral veins scarcely visible on the underside. Flowers produced singly in the leaf-axils near the end of the shoot, in May. Corolla white, nodding, cylindrical, about 1⁄4 in. long, five-toothed. Calyx five-lobed, green; stamens ten; flower-stalk 1⁄4 in. long. Fruit a globose berry 1⁄3 to 1⁄2 in. diameter, containing many very small seeds; it varies in colour from pure white to pink, lilac, crimson, and purple, or almost black; calyx not fleshy.

Native of Chile and bordering parts of Argentina from Cape Horn northward to around 40° S.; introduced in 1828, from the region of the Straits of Magellan. This is one of the hardiest of S. American shrubs, and is rarely severely injured by frost in the neighbourhood of London. Certainly it is one of the finest ornamental berry-bearing shrubs we have. Its berries attain their colour by early autumn, and remain on the branches through the winter and following spring. (See further below, in the note on the garden varieties.)

P. mucronata and its garden varieties need a light, peaty soil and like full sunshine.