A dwarf, prostrate, evergreen shrub, forming large, dark green mats or carpets only a few inches high; branches much forked, slender and slightly downy when young. Leaves alternate, leathery, shortly stalked, oval-lanceolate, pointed, margins often wavy, 1⁄4 to 1⁄3 in. long, half as much wide, shining. Flowers 1⁄8 in. wide, solitary on a short stalk in the upper leaf-axils; corolla white, bell-shaped, five-lobed; stamens ten, anthers not awned. Fruit a globose red berry 3⁄8 in. wide, the persistent calyx in which it is seated often becoming fleshy and coloured also.
Native of Tasmania, where, according to Hooker, it occurs on all the mountains, especially on a granite soil, forming large green cushions there. He records that the fruits, normally red, are sometimes yellow or cream-coloured. H. F. Comber found it only 2 in. high in 1930 on an exposed moor at 4,000 ft altitude. It is a pleasing little evergreen for the rock garden where it can have a moist, preferably peaty soil.
P. nana Col. P. tasmanica var. neozelandica Kirk – In most of its botanical characters this species is very near to P. tasmanica, in which it was included by the younger Hooker. However, it differs in one important respect, namely that the anthers are awned, as is usual in this genus, whereas in P. tasmanica the awns are lacking. As a garden plant P. nana seems to be less easy to grow than the Tasmanian species, and is certainly no better.
