Island manzanita

Description

Arctostaphylos insularis is a species of manzanita known by the common name island manzanita. It is endemic to Santa Cruz Island, one of the Channel Islands of California. Arctostaphylos insularis is a large, spreading shrub reaching over 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) tall and known to exceed 5 metres (16 ft 5 in) in width. It has waxy, reddish bark and the smaller twigs sometimes have bristly glandular hairs. The leaves are shiny green and smooth, generally oval in shape and slightly convex, and up to about 4.5 centimetres (1+3⁄4 in) long. The shrub blooms in many dense clustered inflorescences of urn-shaped flowers. The fruit is an orange-brown drupe up to 1.5 centimetres (5⁄8 in) wide. Arctostaphylos insularis grows in the chaparral, oak woodland, and coastal pine forest habitat of its native island. Arctostaphylos is a genus of plants comprising the manzanitas and bearberries. They are shrubs or small trees. There are about 60 species, of Arctostaphylos, ranging from ground-hugging arctic, coastal, and mountain species to small trees up to 6 m tall. Most are evergreen (one species deciduous), with small oval leaves 1–7 cm long, arranged spirally on the stems. The flowers are bell-shaped, white or pale pink, and borne in small clusters of 2–20 together; flowering is in the spring. The fruit are small berries, ripening in the summer or autumn. The berries of some species are edible. Arctostaphylos species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Coleophora arctostaphyli (which feeds exclusively on A. uva-ursi) and Coleophora glaucella. Manzanitas, the bulk of Arctostaphylos species, are present in the chaparral biome of western North America, where they occur from southern British Columbia in Canada, Washington to California and New Mexico in the United States, and throughout much of northern and central Mexico. Three species, the bearberries, A. alpina (alpine bearberry), A. rubra (red bearberry) and A. uva-ursi (common bearberry), have adapted to arctic and subarctic climates, and have a circumpolar distribution in northern North America, Asia and Europe. An unusual association of manzanita occurs on Hood Mountain, in Sonoma County, California, where stands of pygmy forest dominated by Mendocino cypress are found.