Chamaedaphne

The Leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata) is a shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

 in the plant family Ericaceae

Ericaceae

Ericaceae, the heath family or the heather family is a plant family, comprising mostly calcifuge plants that thrive in acidic soils. Many well-known plants of the Ericaceae live in temperate climates, such as cranberry, blueberry, various heaths and heathers , huckleberry, azalea and rhododendron...

 and the only species in the genus Chamaedaphne. It has a wide distribution throughout the cool temperate and subarctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere

Northern Hemisphere

The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of the equator—the word hemisphere literally means 'half sphere'. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...

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It is a low-growing shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

 up to 1.5 m tall. The leaves

Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...

 are alternately arranged on the branch and elliptical to oblong shaped, 3–4 cm long, with minute scales and lighter coloration on the underside, and an entire or irregularly toothed margin.

The Leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata) is a shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

 in the plant family Ericaceae

Ericaceae

Ericaceae, the heath family or the heather family is a plant family, comprising mostly calcifuge plants that thrive in acidic soils. Many well-known plants of the Ericaceae live in temperate climates, such as cranberry, blueberry, various heaths and heathers , huckleberry, azalea and rhododendron...

 and the only species in the genus Chamaedaphne. It has a wide distribution throughout the cool temperate and subarctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere

Northern Hemisphere

The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of the equator—the word hemisphere literally means 'half sphere'. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...

.

It is a low-growing shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

 up to 1.5 m tall. The leaves

Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...

 are alternately arranged on the branch and elliptical to oblong shaped, 3–4 cm long, with minute scales and lighter coloration on the underside, and an entire or irregularly toothed margin. They are evergreen

Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaves all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....

 but often turn red-brown in winter. The flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds...

s are small (5–6 mm long), white, and bell-like, produced in panicle

Panicle

A panicle is a compound raceme, a loose, much-branched indeterminate inflorescence with pedicellate flowers attached along the secondary branches ....

s up to 12 cm long. The species site is restricted to bogs, where they naturally form large clonal colonies

Clonal colony

A clonal colony or ramet is a group of genetically identical individuals that have grown in a given location, all originating vegetatively from a single ancestor. In plants, an individual in such a population is referred to as a ramet...

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The name Chamaedaphne comes from the Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical , and Hellenistic periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 for "ground laurel"; the common name comes from its tough, leather-like leaf.

Leatherleaf is used as a food plant by the larva

Larva

A larva is a young form of animal with indirect development, going through or undergoing metamorphosis ....

e of some Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera is an order of insects that includes moths and butterflies. It is one of the most speciose orders in the class Insecta, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...

 species including Coleophora ledi

Coleophora

Coleophora is a very large genus of moths of the family Coleophoridae with around 1000 described species. The genus is represented on all continents but the majority are found in the Nearctic and Palaearctic regions...

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