Species
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Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (L.) Spreng.

Bear-grape, Bearberry, Bearberry (EN), Bearberry Manzanita

Climate known 71 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Arctostaphylos uva-ursi is a plant species of the genus Arctostaphylos widely distributed across circumboreal regions of the subarctic Northern Hemisphere. Kinnikinnick is a common name in Canada and the United States. Growing up to 30 centimetres in height, the leaves are evergreen. The flowers are white to pink and the fruit is a red berry.

Text from Wikipedia, “Arctostaphylos uva-ursi”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Arctostaphylos

Arctostaphylos is a genus of plants within the family Ericaceae. Many plants within the genus Arctostaphylos are also commonly called manzanitas(/ˌmænzəˈniːtəz/) or bearberries. There are 107 taxa within Arctostaphylos, 106 of which are found in the California Floristic Province. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Arctostaphylos”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Ericaceae
Described by
(L.) Spreng.
Native to
Denmark, Finland, Great Britain +83
Wild records
766 in range· 201 open

At a glance

Warmest month
23°C
Jul, mean day; nights 13 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
818mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Nov 87 mm (CHELSA)
Light
7–42DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (October to January and April to July in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 818 mm a year, wettest November at 87 mm, driest February at 52 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 7 to 42 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -25.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Arbutus acerba Gilib.; Arbutus buxifolia Stokes; Arbutus officinalis Boiss.; Arbutus procumbens Salisb.; Arbutus ursina E.H.L.Krause, 1901 and 45 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (October to January and April to July in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (590 mm of 818 mm) takes 8 months, October to January and April to July. Mean temperature moves 20.5 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: October to January and April to July.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 818 mm a year, wettest November at 87 mm, driest February at 52 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

818 mm a year at the habitat, 590 mm of it October to January and April to July. Wettest month November at 87 mm, driest February at 52 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 469 mm to 1812 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 7 to 42 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 7 to 42 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 2, the highest 90th-percentile month 47).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -25.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -25.3 °C, the absolute minimum -38.6 °C, about 160 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 30.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -6.9 °C in January (across the envelope cells -13.8 °C to 2.9 °C), warmest day 22.9 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -25.3 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 57 to 64% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 1 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Jul; mean night from -7 °C in Jan to 13 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 818 mm of rain a year, most in Nov. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 595 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -38.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 30.5 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-40°-20°20°40°frost30.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)-38.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250300mm rainDLI 7–42RH 57–64 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 595 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C1 / -5–73 / -3–96 / 1–1111 / 6–1415 / 10–1820 / 15–2323 / 18–2723 / 18–2618 / 14–2212 / 8–165 / 0–111 / -5–7
Night °C-7 / -14–3-6 / -13–3-3 / -9–41 / -5–66 / -0–1010 / 5–1313 / 8–1713 / 8–179 / 4–144 / -2–10-1 / -9–6-6 / -14–3
Rain mm69 / 18–23352 / 19–17357 / 29–16366 / 30–12672 / 43–11374 / 45–11464 / 24–10461 / 26–10758 / 36–11079 / 33–17687 / 23–25579 / 22–241
DLI9 / 3–1715 / 7–2425 / 15–3333 / 26–4138 / 34–4541 / 36–4742 / 34–4736 / 27–4127 / 17–3417 / 8–269 / 3–187 / 2–15
RH %64 / 55–6961 / 55–6759 / 54–6458 / 53–6257 / 53–6358 / 52–6457 / 50–6458 / 50–6559 / 51–6460 / 53–6664 / 54–6964 / 55–70

Each figure is the median across the 595 grid cells holding the 753 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 914:2218 (44.275, -69.075). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -38.6 °C, 1st-percentile night -25.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 30.5 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 595 distinct grid cells holding the 753 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 914:2218 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 44.50_-69.375, lapse-corrected +29 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 126 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeDenmark, Finland, Great Britain, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, France, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Central European Russia, East European Russia, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Ukraine, Buryatiya, Chita, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, West Siberia, Yakutskiya, Amur, Khabarovsk, Sakhalin, Mongolia, Aleutian Is., Alaska, Greenland, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Yukon, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Labrador, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward I., Québec, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode I., Vermont, West Virginia, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Maryland, Virginia
Extinct inDelaware· recorded as extinct by WCVP: history, not habitat; no records are tested against these regions
Kew's description“subshrub” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker48.511, -123.459 · in the densest population, 320 records (42% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 766 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 201 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 96 km away. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 13 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 766 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Arctostaphylos uva-ursiArctostaphylos uva-ursiArctostaphylos uva-ursiArctostaphylos uva-ursiArctostaphylos uva-ursiArctostaphylos uva-ursiArctostaphylos uva-ursiArctostaphylos uva-ursi

Photographs: (c) Roger Raiche, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5); (c) christine123, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Micki Colbeck, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Zac Peterson, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Free-radical scavenging capacity and antioxidant activity of selected plant species from the Canadian prairies
Ryszard Amarowicz, Ronald B. Pegg, Parvaneh Rahimi‐Moghaddam, B. Barl (2003) · Food Chemistry
The role of the xanthophyll cycle and of lutein in photoprotection of photosystem II
Peter Jahns, Alfred R. Holzwarth (2011) · Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Bioenergetics
A comprehensive review on tyrosinase inhibitors
Samaneh Zolghadri, Asieh Bahrami, Mahmud Tareq Hassan Khan, José Muñoz-Muñoz (2019) · Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry
Photoprotection in an ecological context: the remarkable complexity of thermal energy dissipation
Barbara Demmig‐Adams, William W. Adams (2006) · New Phytologist
The molecular revolution in ectomycorrhizal ecology: peeking into the black‐box
Thomas R. Horton, Thomas D. Bruns (2001) · Molecular Ecology
An updated checklist of the vascular flora native to Italy
Fabrizio Bartolucci, Lorenzo Peruzzi, Gabriele Galasso, Antonella Albano (2018) · Plant Biosystems - An International Journal Dealing with all Aspects of Plant Biology
Interpretation manual of European Union habitats.
Carlos Romão (1996) · Archive of European Integration (AEI) (University of Pittsburgh)
Naturally occurring anti-cancer compounds: shining from Chinese herbal medicine
Hua Luo, Chi Teng Vong, Hanbin Chen, Yan Gao (2019) · Chinese Medicine
Plants as sources of new antimicrobials and resistance-modifying agents
Ana Cristina Abreu, Andrew J. McBain, Manuel Simões (2012) · Natural Product Reports

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Arctostaphylos 2 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search API
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 8 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.