Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small branched shrubs 0.3–1 m tall; branches brown to reddish brown, glabrous.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades narrowly obovate to oblong–obovate, 1–2 cm long, 0.6–1 cm wide. Apex rounded. Base cuneate. Lower surfaces usually with conspicuous long, raised, usually reddish purple secretory lines, glabrous, both surfaces black punctate; Blades coriaceous. Margins entire, becoming serrulate in upper one–third to one–fourth, revolute. Midrib prominent. Petioles 1–2 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in pedicels 2.5–6 mm long, glabrous. Flowers apparently bisexual (perfect), 1–2 in bracteolate fascicles among or just below the leaves. Calyx 4–5(6)-lobed, usually deeply so, the lobes imbricate or valvate in bud, punctate or with secretory lines, lobes 1–1.3 mm long, margins sparsely ciliate. Corolla 4–5(6)-lobed, the lobes nearly distinct or connate up to ½ their length, imbricate in bud, linear–oblanceolate, ca. 3.5 mm long, the inner surface with conspicuously raised, reddish secretory lines, margins ciliate. Anthers ca. 1.5–1.6 mm long, apex nearly glabrous. Ovary superior, glabrous, 3–5(6)-carpellate, 1-celled; ovules few in a single row, ovary reduced and sterile or absent in staminate flowers; style very short or absent, terminal; stigma capitate-angled.

Fruit: Drupes purplish black; subglobose; 8–9.5 mm in diameter. Seeds 1 per fruit; small; dark colored; subglobose; excavated at base.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Shrubby bogs.

Elevation Range: 1,520–1,525 m.