Pernettya leucocarpa DC.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Pernettya leucocarpa' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/pernettya/pernettya-leucocarpa/). Accessed 2025-03-24.

Family

Ericaceae

Genus

Pernettya

Synonyms

P. andina Meigen
P. gayana Decne.

Infraspecifics

P Comber 591

Other taxa in genus

Glossary

apex: (pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
calyx: (pl. calyces) Outer whorl of the perianth. Composed of several sepals.
crenate: With rounded teeth at the edge.
entire: With an unbroken margin.
glabrous: Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.
globose: globularSpherical or globe-shaped.
lanceolate: Lance-shaped; broadest in middle tapering to point.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Pernettya leucocarpa' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/pernettya/pernettya-leucocarpa/). Accessed 2025-03-24.

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.

P. leucocarpa is closely allied to P. pumila, but is of more open habit and the leaves are not so densely arranged.

P Comber 591

Synonyms
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.