Mountain Lover
Paxistima myrsinites
Bittersweet family (Celastraceae)

Mountain Lover is a shrub found in many forested and shrubland habitats throughout western North America. Mountain Lover often goes unnoticed at first glance as it hugs the ground or grows under trees and taller bushes. Its tiny new evergreen leaves are a light yellow/green, changing to a shiny, deep, luxuriant green when they mature. If you get down on your knees you will find, tucked into the leaf axils, tiny tubular flowers with red, flared petals. Mountain Lover is considered important forage for deer, elk, and moose. Meriwether Lewis collected the first specimen of this plant for science in the Rockies in present-day Idaho in 1806. "Paxistima" is Greek for "thick stigma"; "myrsinites," Greek for "myrtle," was applied to Mountain Lover for its resemblance to members of the Myrtle Family (Myrtaceae).

Description

Low-growing evergreen shrub, 8-20" tall, bushy with 4-sided red brown stems. Leaves small, opposite, elliptic to oval, glossy, leathery, and sharply toothed. Flowers are very small, red tubular, in clusters tucked into leaf axils. Flared petals. Fruits are 1-2 seeded capsules with white, fleshy coating.

Field Marks

Low-growing shrub with opposite evergreen leaves and small clusters of maroon flowers growing from leaf axils.

© Al Schneider