bearberry

plural bearberries

1. Any of four dwarf shrubs of formerly all members of the genus Arctostaphylos, three now assigned to genus Arctous, which principally grow in arctic and subarctic regions and bear edible berries.

   Sometimes she scrabbled through the drifts on hilltops and found a few wizened bearberries or a handful of rock-tripe, a kind of moss.

   1952, Farley Mowat, People of the Deer, Key Porter, published 2005, page 26

   1. common bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi).
   2. alpine bearberry, mountain bearberry, black bearberry (Arctous alpina, syn. Arctostaphylos alpinus)
   3. red bearberry (Arctous rubra, syn. Arctostaphylos rubra)
   4. A similar berry of temperate south-central China (Arctous microphylla).
2. Pacific madrone (Arbutus menziesii).