Salal

Description

Gaultheria shallon is an evergreen shrub in the heather family (Ericaceae), native to western North America. In English, it is known as salal, shallon, or simply gaultheria in Britain. Gaultheria shallon is 1.3 to 10 ft (0.40 to 3.05 m) tall, sprawling to erect. It is loosely to densely branched and often forms dense, nearly impenetrable thickets. Twigs are reddish-brown, with shredding bark. Twigs can live up to 16 years or more, but bear leaves only the first few years. Its evergreen leaves are dense, leathery, and tough, of egg-headed shape. They are shiny and dark green on the upper surface, and rough and lighter green on the lower. Each finely and sharply serrate leaf is 5 to 10 cm (2.0 to 3.9 in) long. Each leaf generally lives for 2 to 4 years before it is replaced. The inflorescence of flowers consists of a bracteate raceme, one-sided, with five to 15 flowers at the ends of branches. Each flower is composed of a deeply five-parted, glandular-haired calyx and an urn-shaped pink to white, glandular to hairy, five-lobed corolla, 7 to 10 mm (0.28 to 0.39 in) long. The fruit is reddish to blue, rough-surfaced, covered in tiny hairs, nearly spherical and 6 to 10 mm (0.24 to 0.39 in) in diameter. The fruits are "pseudoberries", or capsules made up of a fleshy outer calyx, and each fruit contains an average of 126 brown, reticulate seeds approximately 0.004 inches (0.10 mm) in length.