ARBUTUS [ARCTOSTAPHYLOS] UVA URSI. 
TRAILING ARBUTUS; OR, RED BEAR-BERRY. 
Class X. DECANDRIA.— Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, ERICE/E.— THE HEATH TRIBE. 
Fig. (a) represents the calyx j (b) a flower cut open to show the stamens ; (c) a stamen, with its anthers ; (d) the berries ; (e) a berry 
divided transversely, to show the seeds. 
This pretty evergreen shrub is met with both in the old and new continents ; for, in the northern parts of 
Europe, it abounds in Sweden, Lapland, and Iceland ; it is extensively diffused over Scotland and the north 
of England, and extends southerly to the shores of the Mediterranean. It is also found in Siberia, and is 
represented as abundant on the banks of the Wolga; while in North America it grows from Hudson’s 
Bay, as far south as the central parts of the United States. 
With us, it occurs only in dry, stony, subalpine moors, covering the ground with beds of considerable 
extent, at the height of 1,500 feet and upwards above the level of the sea. It is common throughout the 
Highlands, and Western Islands of Scotland, and abounds at Dunkeld and Blair, the seats of the Duke of 
Athol, in Perthshire. 
The root is perennial, long, and fibrous ; sending off several round, woody, branched, spreading, procum- 
bent stems, covered with a smooth deciduous bark. The leaves are not unlike those of the Box, alternate, 
evergreen, obtuse, ob-ovate, entire, attached by short stalks, coriaceous, smooth, convex, dark green, and 
wrinkled above ; concave, finely reticulated and paler beneath, with the margin rounded, and in the young 
ones pubescent. The flowers which are produced in June, grow in small clusters at the extremity of the 
branches, each supported on a short red footstalk, and furnished with many acute coloured bracteas. They 
are usually five or six on each branch, drooping, and of a rose-red colour. The calyx is small, obtusely 
5-toothed, and persistent. The corolla is ovate, smooth, transparent at the base, contracted at the mouth, 
with five short reflexed segments. The filaments are awl-shaped, downy, inserted at the base of the corolla, 
and crowned with reddish incumbent anthers, of two oval cells, opening by two terminal pores, and bearing 
a pair of short horns or spurs. The germen is roundish, bearing a cylindrical erect style, the length of the 
corolla ; with a simple stigma. The fruit is a small, globular, smooth, depressed scarlet berry, containing a 
mealy pulp of an austere taste, and four or five angular seeds. 
The plants of this genus are very nearly allied to those of the Vaecinium, or Whortle-berry, from which 
they differ principally in the situation of the berry, which in the Arbutus grows above the calyx; and in the 
Yaccinium below it. The present species may be distinguished from the Arbutus alpina, or Black Bear- 
berry, by the figure of the leaves, which in the former are smooth, and entire, while in the latter they are 
rugged, and serrated. 
Qualities and Chemical Properties. — The leaves of this plant, which are the parts used in 
medicine, are slightly bitter, and astringent to the taste. The result of Dr. Bigelow’s chemical trials with 
them, shows that they abound in tannin. A solution of jelly occasioning a copious precipitate ; sulphate of 
iron an equally copious one of a black colour. Nitrate of mercury gives a percipitate of a light green colour : 
lime-water, of a brownish colour. The existence of gallic acid is somewhat problematical ; and the quan- 
tity of resin, mucous matter, and extractive, provided they reside in the plant, must be minute ; since the 
decoction is not rendered turbid by the addition of alcohol, or ether, nor the tincture by the addition of 
