''Arctostaphylos pungens'', with the common name pointleaf manzanita, is a species of

manzanita Manzanita is a common name for many species of the genus ''Arctostaphylos''. They are evergreen shrubs or small trees present in the chaparral biome of western North America, where they occur from Southern British Columbia and Washington to Or ...

. It is native to the

Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...

and to northern and central Mexico, where it grows in

chaparral Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant community and geographical feature found primarily in the U.S. state of California, in southern Oregon, and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. It is shaped by a Mediterranean c ...

and woodland

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s, and on desert ridges. ''Arctostaphylos pungens'' can be seen growing at Tent Rocks National Monument in New Mexico at an elevation of about 6000 feet.

Description

''Arctostaphylos pungens'' is an erect, spreading, evergreen

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

growing to heights between one and three meters. It has smooth red bark. Its smaller twigs and new leaves are lightly woolly. Mature leaves are leathery, shiny and green, oval to widely lance-shaped, and up to 4 centimeters long. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

is a spherical cluster of urn-shaped manzanita flowers. The fruit is a

drupe In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pit'', ''stone'', or '' pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed (''kernel'') ...

5 to 8 millimeters wide. It is a food source for many kinds of wildlife, and it is harvested by people and made into

jam Jam is a type of fruit preserve. Jam or Jammed may also refer to: Other common meanings * A firearm malfunction * Block signals ** Radio jamming ** Radar jamming and deception ** Mobile phone jammer ** Echolocation jamming Arts and entertai ...

in many parts of Mexico.Forest Service Ecology
/ref>Laferrière, Joseph E., Charles W. Weber and Edwin A. Kohlhepp. 1991a. Use and nutritional composition of some traditional Mountain Pima plant foods. Journal of Ethnobiology 11(1):93-114. This shrub thrives in dry, shallow, acidic soils heavy with gravel and sand, and forms relationships with

mycorrhiza A mycorrhiza (from Greek μύκης ', "fungus", and ῥίζα ', "root"; pl. mycorrhizae, mycorrhiza or mycorrhizas) is a symbiotic association between a fungus and a plant. The term mycorrhiza refers to the role of the fungus in the plant ...

e to obtain extra nutrients and water. The seeds require

scarification Scarification involves scratching, etching, burning/branding, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification or body art. The body modification can take roughly 6–12 months to heal. In the p ...

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire ...

before they are able to

germinate Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the spores of fungi, fer ...

References

External links

Jepson Manual Treatment - ''Arctostaphylos pungens''USDA Plants Profile; ''Arctostaphylos pungens''''Arctostaphylos pungens'' - Photo gallery
pungens Flora of the Southwestern United States Flora of California Flora of the California desert regions Flora of the Sonoran Deserts Flora of Northwestern Mexico Flora of Arizona Flora of New Mexico Flora of Utah Flora of Texas Natural history of the California chaparral and woodlands Plants described in 1819 Flora of the Sierra Madre Occidental {{Ericaceae-stub