Shrubs, erect or mound-forming, 1-3 m; burl present; twigs tomentose to short-hairy, with eglandular hairs or with long, clear, pink or dark, glandular hairs. Leaves: petiole 5-10 mm; blade bright green, slightly glaucous to strongly gray-glaucous, shiny or dull, elliptic to ovate, 2-4.5 × 1-2.5 cm, base cuneate to rounded, sometimes ± lobed or truncate, margins entire or toothed, plane, surfaces papillate, scabrous or smooth, glabrous or glandular-puberulent to -hairy, puberulent, or finely tomentose, sometimes glabrescent; (abaxial surface sometimes with more stomata than adaxial surface). Inflorescences panicles, 3-6-branched; immature inflorescence pendent, (branches crowded, not concealed by bracts), axis 1-3 cm, 1+ mm diam., short-hairy to hairy, with or without glandular hairs; bracts not appressed, variable, from scalelike and awl-like to leaflike and deltate, lanceolate, or broadly lanceolate (at least at base), 3-10 mm, apex acute, surfaces hairy or finely glandular-hairy. Pedicels 3-10 mm, sparsely hairy to finely glandular-hairy. Flowers: corolla white to pink, conic to urceolate; ovary densely white-hairy, sometimes glandular. Fruits slightly (or markedly) depressed-globose, 6-10 mm diam., glabrous or finely glandular-hairy, (viscid). Stones usually mostly distinct, sometimes connate.

Arctostaphylos glandulosa occurs in the California Floristic Province from southern Oregon to northern Baja California within the Coast, Transverse, and Peninsular ranges.