An evergreen shrub 2 to 4 ft high; young shoots hairy at first, becoming brown and glabrous. Leaves ovate to ovate-lanceolate, up to 2 in. long by 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in. wide, pointed, tapering to a very short red stalk, sparsely toothed, ciliate when young, dark green. Flowers crowded in axillary racemes 11⁄4 in. long, nodding; corolla waxy white, ovoid-globose, 1⁄4 in. long, spreading at the apex into five quite short, broad, reflexed lobes, opening from April to June; calyx with five short, spreading lobes; stamens ten, downy at the base. Fruits brownish red, with a fleshy calyx. Bot. Mag., t. 4920.
Native of the coastal region of Chile from Concepcion to the region of Puerto Aisen; introduced by Standish and Noble about the middle of the last century, but always rare. It is a rather anomalous species, agreeing best with Pernettya, but differing from all the other species in its racemose inflorescence, and with unusually large leaves for a pernettya. Its rarity in cultivation is due partly perhaps to its slight tenderness, and partly, perhaps, to the dullness of its fruits. As a flowering shrub it is the most decorative of the pernettyas, though not superior in this respect to the hardier and commoner × Gaulnettya ‘Wisley Pearl’.