Arctostaphylos patula
Common name: 
Green Manzanita
Greenleaf Manzanita
Buckbrush
Pronunciation: 
ark-tow-STAF-i-los PAT-u-la
Family: 
Ericaceae
Genus: 
Arctostaphylos
Type: 
Broadleaf
Native to (or naturalized in) Oregon: 
Yes
  • Evergreen shrub, to 7 ft (2 m) tall, branches crooked, stout, and rigid; twigs smooth or covered with fine hairs.  Bark glossy, smooth, and reddish-brown, on older branches it exfoliates in strips revealing a whitish-green color.  Leaves alternate, simple, ovate to elliptical, 2.5-5 cm long, leathery, apex and base rounded, margin entire, light green and glossy on both surfaces, sometimes minute pubescence; petiole to 2 cm long.  Flowers pinkish-white, urn-shaped, in terminal, nodding clusters, bloom in very early spring.  Fruit a berry-like drupe (resembles a small apple), dark reddish-brown to black, thin mealy pulp enclosing 4 to 10 stony seeds.
  • Sun or light shade.  Best on well-drained soils, does well on dry sites.
  • Hardy to USDA Zone 5     Native range from Washington through the Oregon Cascades and south through the Sierra Nevada to the Coast Range of northern California, east to the Great Basin and western Colorado, and south to the higher elevations of northern Arizona.
  • patula: spreading
Click image to enlarge
  • plant habit, spring flowering

    plant habit, spring flowering

  • flowering branches

    flowering branches

  • flowers and leaves

    flowers and leaves

  • leaves

    leaves

  • immature and mature fruit

    immature and mature fruit

  • plant habit, after flowering

    plant habit, after flowering

  • plant habit, fall (Crater Lake Nat. Park)

    plant habit, fall (Crater Lake Nat. Park)