Pinemat manzanita

Description

Arctostaphylos nevadensis, with the common name pinemat manzanita, is a species of manzanita. Arctostaphylos nevadensis is native to western North America from Washington to California, where it grows in the coniferous forests of the inland and coastal mountain ranges. It is a dominant shrub in the mountain understory chaparral in many areas. Arctostaphylos nevadensis is a short, spreading shrub forming mats, tangles, or mounds less than half a meter tall. The larger branches have dull red bark and the twigs are generally woolly. Leaves are bright green and shiny, with few hairs especially along the edges. They measure 1 to 3 centimeters in length. The shrub blooms in spherical clusters of urn-shaped whitish manzanita flowers. The fruit is a spherical drupe about 7 millimeters wide. This species is cultivated as a chaparral landscaping plant and it is used to stabilize soil against erosion on mountain slopes. 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.