Common Name: HEATH FAMILY
Habit: Perennial herb, shrub, tree. Stem: bark often peeling distinctively. Leaf: simple or 0, generally cauline, alternate, opposite (whorled), evergreen or deciduous, often leathery, petioled or not; stipules 0. Inflorescence: raceme, panicle, cyme, or flowers 1, terminal or axillary, generally bracted; pedicel often with 2 bractlets. Flower: generally bisexual, generally radial, bell-shaped, cylindric, or urn-shaped; sepals generally (0)4--5, generally free; petals generally (0)4--5, free or fused; stamens (2--5)8--10, free, filaments rarely appendaged, anthers dehiscing by pores or slits, awns 0 or 2(4), seemingly abaxial, reduced or elongate, generally curved; nectary generally present at ovary base, generally disk-like; ovary superior or inferior, chambers generally 1--5, placentas axile or parietal, ovules 1--many per chamber, style 1, stigma head- to funnel-like or lobed. Fruit: capsule, drupe, berry. Seed: generally many, winged or not.
Genera In Family: +- 100 genera, 3000 species: generally worldwide except deserts; some cultivated, especially Arbutus, Arctostaphylos, Rhododendron, Vaccinium. Note: Monophyletic only if Empetraceae included, as treated here. Ledum included in Rhododendron. Non-green plants obtain nutrition from green plants through fungal intermediates.
eFlora Treatment Author: Gary D. Wallace, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Gary D. Wallace, Thomas J. Rosatti, Bruce G. Baldwin.

Common Name: WINTERGREEN
Habit: Perennial subshrub, evergreen, rhizomed. Leaf: +- basal, reniform, ovate, +- round, elliptic, or obovate, +- entire to crenate or dentate, generally petioled (if vestigial, lanceolate to deltate, +- not green, sessile). Inflorescence: raceme, +- erect, not 1-sided, elongate; scape smooth, glabrous, bracts generally 1--several, deltate or lanceolate; flower bract 1 per flower, < to >> pedicel. Flower: radial, +- closed or subradial or bilateral, +- open, parts in 5s, free; petals without tubercles, upper 2 generally forming hood over upturned stamens; stamens 10, filaments generally widened at base, smooth, glabrous, anther generally with tube-like constrictions subtending pores; nectary 0; ovary superior, style +- included and straight or generally exserted and downcurved, stigma peltate, with 5 spreading lobes above a prominent, reflexed collar or generally not peltate, generally with 5 +- erect lobes projecting beyond a delicate, reflexed collar. Fruit: capsule, pendent; valves opening base to tip, margins fibrous. Seed: +- 1000.
Etymology: (Latin: little pear, +- from leaf shape) Note: Pyrola chlorantha not in CA.
Unabridged Note: In Jepson eFlora Revision 2, Pyrola aphylla, Pyrola crypta, Pyrola dentata added, as native.
eFlora Treatment Author: Diana D. Jolles
Reference: Jolles & Wolfe 2012 Syst Bot 37:468--477; Jolles & Wilson 2014 Taxon 63(4):789--800