Shrubs or trees, erect, 1-5 m; burl absent; twigs sparsely short-hairy with sessile glands among hairs. Leaves: petiole 1-4 mm; blade gray-glaucous, dull, ovate, 1.5-3.5 × 1.1-2.4 cm, base distinctly lobed, auriculate-clasping, margins entire, plane, surfaces smooth, canescent, glabrescent. Inflorescences panicles, 1-4-branched; immature inflorescence pendent, branches spreading, axis 1-3 cm, 1+ mm diam., sparsely short-hairy with sessile glands among hairs; bracts not appressed, (spreading), scalelike (lowermost leaflike), deltate, 3-5 mm, (fleshy), apex mucronate, surfaces hairy. Pedicels 8-10 mm, hairy or glabrous. Flowers: corolla white to pink, conic to urceolate; ovary glabrous, (not viscid). Fruits globose, 10-15 mm diam., glabrous, (not viscid). Stones connate into single sphere. 2n = 26.

Flowering winter-early spring. Chaparral on decomposing granites; of conservation concern; 300-700 m; Calif.

Arctostaphylos gabilanensis is known from two disjunct populations in the Gabilan Mountains, San Benito and Monterey counties.