About Arctostaphylos patula Greene
Arctostaphylos patula Greene, commonly known as greenleaf manzanita, is a shrub that grows 1 to 2 meters (3½ to 6½ feet) tall. It stays low to the ground, with some lower branches rooting in the soil and others growing more outward than upward. Its stems are twisting, reddish-brown, and shiny from glandular secretion. Leaf petioles may sometimes have clear to glandular hairs. The leaves are oval to nearly round, flat, shiny, and smooth, reaching 2½ inches (6 centimeters) long and up to 4 centimeters wide. This plant produces abundant clusters of hanging white to pink urn-shaped flowers; each flower has five small lobes at the mouth of its corolla. The fruits are dark brown drupes nearly 1 centimeter wide, each holding about five hard-coated seeds that can be fused together. Seeds are primarily dispersed by seed-caching mammals; fruits are sometimes consumed and dispersed by birds and medium-to-large mammals including bears, coyotes, coatis, and foxes. Seeds require fire followed by cold conditions to germinate, and can remain dormant in soil for hundreds of years. In some but not all regions, greenleaf manzanitas produce lignotubers, which allow them to reproduce vegetatively. This is one of the most widespread manzanita species, occurring across most of western North America. Its range extends north to Washington state, east to Colorado, west to the North American west coast, and south to Baja California, Mexico. It grows in coniferous forests at elevations between roughly 460 to 3,660 meters (1,500 to 12,000 feet). In addition to providing edible fruit for a number of mammals, this species is an important browse plant for deer. Some Plateau Indian tribes drank tea made from greenleaf manzanita as a cathartic.
