Gaultheria pumila
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New article for Trees and Shrubs Online.
Recommended citation
'Gaultheria pumila' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Synonyms
- Pernettya pumila (L.f.) Hook.
- Arbutus pumila L.f.
Infraspecifics
Other taxa in genus
- Gaultheria adenothrix
- Gaultheria antipoda
- Gaultheria appressa
- Gaultheria borneensis
- Gaultheria codonantha
- Gaultheria colensoi
- Gaultheria crassa
- Gaultheria cuneata
- Gaultheria depressa
- Gaultheria eriophylla
- Gaultheria forrestii
- Gaultheria fragrantissima
- Gaultheria griffithiana
- Gaultheria hirtiflora
- Gaultheria hispida
- Gaultheria hispidula
- Gaultheria hookeri
- Gaultheria humifusa
- Gaultheria insana
- Gaultheria leucocarpa
- Gaultheria macrostigma
- Gaultheria marticorenae
- Gaultheria miqueliana
- Gaultheria mucronata
- Gaultheria myrsinoides
- Gaultheria nummularioides
- Gaultheria oppositifolia
- Gaultheria ovatifolia
- Gaultheria parvula
- Gaultheria procumbens
- Gaultheria pyroloides
- Gaultheria rupestris
- Gaultheria semi-infera
- Gaultheria shallon
- Gaultheria sinensis
- Gaultheria stapfiana
- Gaultheria subcorymbosa
- Gaultheria tasmanica
- Gaultheria tetramera
- Gaultheria thymifolia
- Gaultheria trichophylla
- Gaultheria wardii
- Gaultheria × wisleyensis
A low, often prostrate evergreen shrub frequently only a few inches high, easily distinguished from G. mucronata by the smaller ovate or ovate-lanceolate leaves having no mucro at the apex; often they are blunt or even rounded there; they are 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 in. long and have cartilaginous, very minutely toothed margins. Flowers white, nodding, bell-shaped, 3⁄16 in. wide, with five shallow reflexed lobes. Fruits globose, 3⁄16 in. wide, white or pink; calyx not fleshy.
Native of the Falkland Islands and of the Magellan region; known since the second half of the 18th century, but not introduced, so far as is known, until the 1920s or 1930s. It makes an interesting plant for the rock garden and is quite hardy, but the fruits are only borne if plants of both sexes are grown. In the wild state it bears fruit very abundantly; one collector states that they could be gathered by the bushel and cooked like huckleberries.
var. leucocarpa (DC.) D.J.Middleton
Synonyms
Pernettya gayana (DC.) Decne.
Pernettya leucocarpa DC.
Editorial Note
Bean treated this variety as Pernettya leucocarpa, describing it as ‘of more open habit and [with the] leaves [ ] not so densely arranged’ as G. pumila. We reproduce Bean’s text below, adapted to reflect the updated nomenclature.
A low, creeping evergreen shrub up to 6 or 8 in. high, spreading much wider by underground stems and of dense habit. Leaves mostly 1⁄4 to 3⁄8 in. long, elliptic, oblong-elliptic, or oblong-lanceolate, roundish at the apex, dark shining green, glabrous, lateral veins beneath not visible, margins entire or very faintly crenate-toothed. Flowers white, sometimes tinged with pink, solitary in the leaf-axils, pedicels equalling or shorter than the leaves. Fruits globose, white, edible; calyx not fleshy.
Native of the Andes of Chile and bordering parts of Argentina, from the latitude of Santiago at least as far south as 42° S., common on the volcanoes, where it reaches to the snow-line; described by de Candolle from a specimen collected by Poeppig on the Antuco volcano; introduced by Harold Comber in 1926 under C.501.
[Bean included the following note relating to one of Harold Comber’s collections. To avoid exacerbating what is already a taxonomic tangle, and pending full revision of the genus, we here reproduce here Bean’s text with its original nomenclature:]
P Comber 591 [P. leucocarpa Hort., P. leucocarpa var. linearis Hort.] From specimens preserved in the Kew Herbarium it is clear that the plants raised from the seeds sent by Comber under 591 and distributed as P. leucocarpa var. linearis, do not in fact belong to P. leucocarpa, and are most probably hybrids between it and P. prostrata subsp. pentlandii. This could also be true of the wild plant from which Comber gathered the seeds, since the dried specimen he collected does not agree well with P. leucocarpa. Of the cultivated plants under C. 591 some resemble P. prostrata subsp. pentlandii, but have unusually narrow leaves. Thus the plant at Nymans which received an Award of Merit as “P. leucocarpa” when shown in 1929 has linear-oblong or linear-elliptic leaves up to 1⁄2 in. or slightly more long and about 1⁄10 in. wide, slightly toothed and with the lateral veins raised beneath. Other specimens from the same batch of seeds are nearer to P. leucocarpa, but none agrees well with it. The wild plant named P. leucocarpa var. linearis by Reiche could well have been a hybrid also; the name is given by Dr Sleumer as a synonym of P. prostrata pentlandii.
var. pumila
Synonyms
Pernettya empetrifolia Gaudich.
Andromeda empetrifolia Lam.
Arbutus empetrifolia Pers.
Pernettya andina F.Meigen
Editorial Note
Pernettya andina F.Meigen, synonymous with this variety, was given by Bean as synonym for P. leucocarpa (syn. Gaultheria pumila var. leucocarpa).