Cassiope mertensiana
Cassiope lycopodioides
Mertens' moss-heather, Mertens' mountain-heather, western bell heather, western moss heather, white heather, white moss-heather, White Mountain-heather
club-moss mountain-heather
spreading or ascending to erect, forming dense mats, puberulent, glandular-hairy, or glabrous.
prostrate to weakly ascending, forming loose mats, hairy.
imbricate, somewhat appressed to leaf above, usually 4-ranked;
blade ovate-lanceolate, abaxial groove absent, 3–4.5 × 1–1.5 mm, margins thin but not scarious, without curled hairs at leaf tips, surfaces glabrous to glandular-hairy or sparsely hairy.
not or somewhat imbricate, closely appressed to stem, not strongly 4-ranked;
blade linear-lanceolate, abaxial groove absent, 2–3 × 0.5–1.2 mm, margins conspicuously scarious, curled hairs present at leaf tips (at least on young leaves), abaxial base and adaxial surface hairy.
sepals 2–3 mm, margins entire or erose;
petals connate to 1/3 their lengths, tips recurved, corolla white, campanulate, 5–8 mm;
stamens to 3 mm.
sepals 1.5–2 mm, margins hyaline;
petals connate for ca. 1/2 their lengths, tips recurved, corolla white, campanulate, 6–8 mm;
stamens to 3 mm.
1.5–4 mm.
ca. 3 mm.
Cassiope mertensiana
Cassiope lycopodioides
Subspecies 4 (4 in the flora).
Four subspecies were recognized by Piper, based on differences in pubescence of the stems and leaf margins.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Subspecies cristapilosa was based on a collection from the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia. The only distinction that the authors drew between it and subsp. lycopodioides was that subsp. cristapilosa has one to three crisped apical hairs on the leaves. Their claim that subsp. lycopodioides has entirely glabrous leaves is not supported. All specimens of Cassiope lycopodioides that I have seen have curled hairs on the leaf apices of at least the young leaves. The hairs appear to be fugacious. However, subsp. cristapilosa does differ from subsp. lycopodioides in several features. It lacks the hyaline leaf margin as well as the adaxial surface and abaxial leaf base pubescence. In addition, the stems are thicker, and the pedicels and corollas are longer. This insular material warrants further investigation.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Stems hairy, especially when young, glandular hairs absent; leaf blade margins glabrous. | subsp. mertensiana |
1. Stems glabrous or sparsely glandular-hairy when young; leaf blade margins glandular-hairy, scattered eglandular-hairy, or glabrous | → 2 |
2. Leaf blade margins glabrous | subsp. gracilis |
2. Leaf blade margins glandular-hairy or scattered eglandular-hairy | → 3 |
3. Leaf blade margins glandular-hairy; stems glabrous or sometimes sparsely glandular-hairy when young. | subsp. californica |
3. Leaf blade margins scattered, branched eglandular-hairy, especially when young; stems glabrous when young. | subsp. ciliolata |
- Local floras:
BC, 
CA, 
OR, 
WA - Local Web sites: CalFlora, CalPhotos,
Flora NW, 
PNW Herbaria, Turner Photog. 
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist (observations)
USDA Plants Database- LBJ Wildflower Center
- SEINet
- Plants of the World Online
- Encyclopedia of Life
- Wikipedia
- Google Image Search
