Shagbark manzanita

Description

Arctostaphylos rudis, with the common names Shagbark manzanita and Sand mesa manzanita, is a species of manzanita. This is an erect shrub growing from a burl to heights between one and two meters - 3 and 6 feet. Its stem and branches are covered in shredding gray and reddish bark, with its smaller branches coated in woolly fibers. The leaves are oval in shape and smooth along the edges with few hairs, green in color and shiny. They are 1 to 3 centimeters long. It flowers in late fall and winter in urn-shaped manzanita flowers. The fruits are hairless red drupes about a centimeter wide or slightly larger. Arctostaphylos rudis is endemic to California, where it is known only from the southern Central Coast. It is most abundant at Burton Mesa in the hills north of Lompoc, and there are a few occurrences remaining near Nipomo. It grows in chaparral and coastal sage scrub on sandy soils. 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.