Gaultheria humifusa(Graham) Rydb.

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WFO wfo-0000695201 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Gaultheria humifusa, photographed by Hilary Rose Dawson
fig. a Hilary Rose Dawson, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-12 / obs. 157075294
Gaultheria humifusa, photographed by Randal
fig. b Randal, CC0 1.0 / obs. 157728190
Gaultheria humifusa, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. c Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 151928870
Gaultheria humifusa, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. d Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 151303496
Gaultheria humifusa, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. e Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 150368510
Gaultheria humifusa, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. f Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 150369796
Gaultheria humifusa, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. g Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 110648122
Gaultheria humifusa, photographed by J Straka
fig. h J Straka, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 50685874

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 12 botanical countries

Regions where Gaultheria humifusa is native: Alberta, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming AlbertaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoIdahoMontanaNevadaNew MexicoOregonUtahWashingtonWyoming
Native distribution of Gaultheria humifusa, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Idaho IDA
Montana MNT
Nevada NEV
New Mexico NWM
Oregon ORE
Utah UTA
Washington WAS
Wyoming WYO

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 409 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -18.7 °C -12.8 °C -5.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 14.8 °C 18.8 °C 23.5 °C
Annual rainfall 846 mm 1,611 mm 3,778 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 84 mm 209 mm 362 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 409 research-grade observations of Gaultheria humifusa that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 4 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Brossaea myrsinites (Hook.) Kuntze
  • Gaultheria myrsinites Hook.
  • Vaccinium humifusum Graham
  • Vaccinium obtusum Pursh

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.