Pernettya tasmanica Hook. f.

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.