Scientific Name
Other Names
Life Form
Synonyms
Family
Medicine - Essential oil gaultheria, an anti-inflammatory and analgesic, is brilliant for all muscular pains related to an intense physical effort: lumbago, elongation, sprain, cramps, back pains. It fights the common rheumatisms in the cold and humid climates where the plant thrives.
Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal
It coccurs mostly in the evergreen, Pinus, and mixed forests, and forest margins, thickets on dry and sunny slopes at altitudes of 1500-2700 m asl.
Popular in gardening. Contains essential oils which are used in pain-relieving balms.
It is evergreen shrubs, rarely small trees grow up to 4 m tall.
Twigs terete, sometimes obtusely angled.
It has shiny, leathery leaves with scalloped edges. These oval to narrow-shaped leaves come in various sizes (5-17 cm long) and have a glossy underside.
Inflorescences axillary, racemose, 3–9 cm, strict, many flowered, densely pubescent; bracts ovate, 1–3 mm, abaxially glabrous or puberulous, margin ciliolate. Pedicel 1–7 mm, pubescent; bracteoles apical, rarely distant, broadly ovate. Calyx glabrous; lobes triangular, ca. 2 mm, margin ciliolate. Corolla white, tubular-urceolate, 4–5 mm, abaxially glabrous; lobes very short. Filaments dilated, ca. 1.25 mm, puberulous; anthers ca. 1.25 mm, thecae 2-awned.
Capsule globose, 4–6 mm in diameter
Flowering: April-May