Plants forming extensive, open colonies, 1-7.5 dm; twigs yellowish green, ± terete, hairy. Leaves deciduous, rarely persistent; blade green, spatulate to elliptic, 13-40 × 3-17 mm, subcoriaceous, margins sharply to obscurely serrate, surfaces glandular abaxially, hairy especially when young, rarely glabrous. Flowers: calyx pale green, sometimes hairy; corolla usually white tinged with pink, cylindric, 5-9 mm; filaments ± hairy. Berries black, 6-8 mm diam., sometimes puberulent. Seeds 5-25, ca. 1 mm. 2n = 24.

Flowering winter-spring. Dry sand hills, pine barrens, scrubby oak woods, open pine parkland, and flatwoods subject to burning; 0-200 m; Ala., Fla., Ga., Miss., N.C., S.C., Va.

Colonial from rhizomes, the aerial stems 2-4 dm; young twigs densely pubescent; lvs deciduous, oblanceolate to oblong-obovate, 1.5-3 cm, usually acute, finely ciliate-serrulate, tapering to the base, stipitate-glandular beneath; fls appearing with the lvs, in umbelliform racemes; cor pink to red, ellipsoid-conic, 5-7 mm; fr black, 5-8 mm; 2n=24. Sandy woods and barrens on the coastal plain; se. Va. to Ga. Apr. (Cyanococcus t.)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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