Gaultheria appressa

Erect or spreading shrub to c. 1.6 m high. Young stems with coarse, appressed or semi-appressed hairs, often overlaying very short, fine, curled hairs. Leaves elliptic to ovate-lanceolate, 3–9 cm long, 12–25 mm wide, upper surface glossy dark green, glabrous with impressed venation, lower surface paler with scattered coarse appressed to spreading hairs on the major veins; margins shallowly and evenly serrate. Flowers rather crowded in racemes to c. 4 cm long; bracts broad-ovate, 2–3 mm long, fimbriate; bracteoles resembling bracts; sepals ovate, acute, 2.5–3.5 mm long at anthesis, shortly united at base; corolla urceolate, 4–5 mm long, with bluntish recurved lobes c. 1.5 mm long, white to pale pink. Fruiting sepals 6–8 mm long or more, fleshy and largely fused, forming a berry-like structure 8–10 mm diam., enclosing the dry capsule c. 4 mm diam.; seeds numerous, irregularly shaped, c. 0.7 mm long, pale brown. Flowers Nov.–Dec.