An evergreen shrub, often low and spreading, sometimes up to 2 ft high; young shoots slender, mostly downy, minutely warty. Leaves narrowly oval or obovate, pointed, tapered at the base, indistinctly toothed, scarcely stalked; 1⁄4 to 1 in. long, 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 in. wide (sometimes larger), glossy green above, paler, conspicuously veined and sometimes bristly beneath. Flowers produced in April and May in terminal and axillary clusters towards the end of the shoots. Corolla tubular, 1⁄4 in. long, white or tinged with pink, with five small teeth; calyx triangularly toothed, glabrous like the flower-stalk. Fruits 1⁄4 in. wide, blue-black. Bot. Mag., t. 1550.
Native of S.E. United States from Virginia to Florida; cultivated by Loddiges of Hackney in 1813. It is not very hardy near London, but should succeed farther south and west. The upright form suggests Pernettya mucronata by its small leaves closely set on the branchlets.