Hairy Manzanita

hairy manzanita

More info for the terms: drupe, fruit, lignotuber, shrub

Hairy manzanita is a native, evergreen, erect shrub. Mature plants are
from 2.5 to 16.6 feet (0.8-5.0 m) high with a broadly spreading oval
crown supported by a single trunk. Hairy manzanita lacks a lignotuber
[21,24]. Bristly, glandular branchlets distinguish its foliage [20].
The often viscid fruit is a drupe containing 4 to 10 irregularly
separable nutlets [24].

Hairy manzanita is distributed in the Coast Ranges from Sonoma County,
California, north to Vancouver Island and Vancouver, British Columbia
[21,24]. The largest populations are in southwest Oregon [10]. Hairy
manzanita occurs infrequently on western slopes of the Cascade Range of
Oregon and Washington [21].

More info for the terms: fire regime, seed

Fire activates hairy manzanita seed by scarifying the seedcoat.
Oligosaccharides in charred wood leachate may further enhance rates of
postfire germination [1,20].

FIRE REGIMES :
Find fire regime information for the plant communities in which this
species may occur by entering the species name in the FEIS home page under
"Find FIRE REGIMES".

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More info for the term: phanerophyte

Phanerophyte

More info for the term: forest

Hairy manzanita grows in a variety of soil textures and parent
materials. Soil pH typically ranges from 5.0 to 7.0 [2,13,34]. It can,
however, tolerate extremely acid soils; it grows in dwarfed form in
podsol soils of the pygmy forest of Mendocino County, California. At a
pH of 2.8 to 3.9, soils of the pygmy forest are some of the most acidic
known [17].

Hairy manzanita occurs at elevations up to 2,500 feet (762 m) in
California [24], up to 3,750 feet (1,143 m) in Oregon [30,34], and up to
4,950 feet (1,509 m) in Washington [34].

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This species is known to occur in association with the following cover types (as classified by the Society of American Foresters):

223 Sitka spruce
224 Western hemlock
225 Western hemlock - Sitka spruce
226 Coastal true fir - hemlock
227 Western redcedar - western hemlock
228 Western redcedar
229 Pacific Douglas-fir
230 Douglas-fir - western hemlock
231 Port-Orford-cedar
232 Redwood
234 Douglas-fir - tanoak - Pacific madrone
244 Pacific ponderosa pine - Douglas-fir
245 Pacific ponderosa pine
247 Jeffrey pine
249 Canyon live oak

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This species is known to occur in the following ecosystem types (as named by the U.S. Forest Service in their Forest and Range Ecosystem [FRES] Type classification):

FRES20 Douglas-fir
FRES21 Ponderosa pine
FRES24 Hemlock - Sitka spruce
FRES27 Redwood
FRES28 Western hardwoods

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This species is known to occur in association with the following plant community types (as classified by Küchler 1964):

More info for the terms: forest, shrub

K001 Spruce - cedar - hemlock forest
K002 Cedar - hemlock - Douglas-fir forest
K003 Silver fir - Douglas-fir forest
K005 Mixed conifer forest
K009 Pine - cypress forest
K010 Ponderosa shrub forest
K011 Western ponderosa forest
K012 Douglas-fir forest
K029 California mixed evergreen forest
K030 California oakwoods

Fire kills hairy manzanita [1,10,18,37].

More info for the term: fruit

Black bear, coyote, black-tailed deer, and various small mammals and
birds eat hairy manzanita fruit [3,21]. The leaves and stems are
unpalatable to browsing wildlife and livestock [28].

Hummingbirds in British Columbia consume hairy manzanita nectar [25].

More info for the terms: fern, forest, herbaceous, natural, shrub, vine

Hairy manzanita is a component of understories of various western
coniferous forests [20]. It also occurs as scattered plants or in small
clusters interspersed with other shrub species in forest clearings
[10].

Overstory associates of hairy manzanita not listed in Distribution and
Occurrence include golden chinquapin (Chrysolepis chrysophylla), bishop
pine (Pinus muricata), Bolander pine (P. contorta var. bolanderi), shore
pine (P. contorta var. contorta), pygmy cypress (Cupressus goveniana
spp. pygmaea), and grand fir (Abies grandis) [7,12,36].

Common shrub associates are Oregon-grape (Mahonia nervosa), salal
(Gaultheria shallon), whiteleaf manzanita (Arctostaphylos viscida),
snowbrush (Ceanothus velutinus), deerbrush (C. integerrimus), and vine
maple (Acer circinatum) [9,12].

Herbaceous associates include beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax), Canada
horseweed (Conyza canadensis), darkblue penstemon (Penstemon
davidsonii), Oregon stonecrop (Sedum oregonese), and Ross sedge (Carex
rossii). Parsley fern (Cryptogramma acrostichoides) is a common fern
associate [11,12,27].

The following publication names hairy manzanita as a dominant understory
species:

Terrestrial natural communities of California [16]

More info for the term: shrub

Shrub

More info for the term: tree

Timber Management and Control: Hairy manzanita competes with young
conifers in plantations and Christmas tree farms [20,32]. It is highly
susceptible to aerosol application of 2,4-D or 2,4,5-T, which results in
nearly 100 percent kill in the Pacific Northwest [31]. Gratkowski [10]
reported 2,4,5-T as slightly more effective in southwest Oregon.

Cultivation: Hairy manzanita is propagated from stem cuttings [21].

CA OR WA BC

Hairy manzanita is planted as an ornamental [21].

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More info for the term: fruit

Hairy manzanita flowers from March through May in California [24]. In
Linn County, Oregon, plants flower in early June and set fruit from mid-
to late June [27]. Seeds are dispersed from late summer until the
following spring [3].

More info for the terms: cover, forest, seed

Current information concerning hairy manzanita's response to fire is
limited to studies of its regeneration following clearcutting and slash
burning in Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) forest types. It was
reported as establishing from seed after such forest management near
Blue River, Oregon [37]. Further details were not available.
Schoonmaker and McKee [29] reported postfire hairy manzanita seedling
recruitment on the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Oregon. Sites
were broadcast burned and planted with Douglas-fir seedlings. No hairy
manzanita seedlings were found on transects at postfire year 2, but mean
transect cover value of hairy manzanita seedlings was 0.04 percent at
postfire year 5. Mean transect cover value was greatest (0.15%) at
postfire year 15.

A comparison of hairy manzanita cover on burned versus adjacent unburned
plots was made near Oakridge, Oregon. Fire treatment was broadcast
burning of slash. At postfire year 9, hairy manzanita cover was 3.2
percent on burned plots and 0.3 percent on unburned plots [30].

More info for the terms: ground residual colonizer, root crown, secondary colonizer

Shrub without adventitious-bud root crown
Ground residual colonizer (on-site, initial community)
Initial-offsite colonizer (off-site, initial community)
Secondary colonizer - off-site seed

More info for the terms: layering, root crown, scarification, seed

Sexual: Hairy manzanita seed falls beneath the parent plant or is
disseminated by animals. The seedcoat requires scarification prior to
germination, which is accomplished either in the stomach of animals or
by fire [21]. Fire best scarifies the seedcoat and results in greater
rates of germination [30]. Charred wood leachate may further stimulate
germination of fire-scarified seed [1,19].

Vegetative: All manzanitas are capable of layering [5], but hairy
manzanita probably layers only rarely because of its erect growth habit.
It does not sprout from the root crown [1,10].

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This species can be found in the following regions of the western United States (according to the Bureau of Land Management classification of Physiographic Regions of the western United States):

1 Northern Pacific Border
2 Cascade Mountains
3 Southern Pacific Border

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More info for the terms: fern, forest, secondary colonizer, vine

Hairy manzanita is an initial or secondary colonizer of disturbed plant
communities. It is commonly found in communities which develop after
removal of the forest overstory, such as the vine maple-parsley fern
community. Hairy manzanita persists through later seres in the
understory of open-canopy forest. It does not tolerate deep shade, and
does not occur in closed canopy old-growth forest [11,20,21,27,29].

Arctostaphylos tracyi Eastw.

The currently accepted scientific name of hairy manzanita is
Arctostaphylos columbiana Piper [14,15,25,35]. Varieties recognized by
some authorities are as follows [15,24]:

A. columbiana var. columbiana
A. columbiana var. tracyi (Eastwd.) Adams

The latter taxon is a glabrous variant occurring in Humboldt County,
California. Because it is an intrapopulational variant, Wells [35] has
named it A. columbiana forma tracyi (Eastwd.) Wells. He also recognizes
a highly setose form of hairy manzanita: A. columbiana forma setossima
(Eastwd.) Wells, which occurs in Mendocino County, California.

Hairy manzanita hybridizes with bearberry (A. uva-ursi) to produce
A. x media Greene. It also hybridizes with pinemat manzanita (A.
nevadensis) in the Mount Hood region of Oregon, where ranges of the two
species overlap [20,21,35].

Arctostaphylos columbiana is a species of manzanita known by the common name hairy manzanita. It is native to the coast of western North America from northern California to southwestern British Columbia. This large manzanita is a shrub or small tree, usually 1–5 meters tall. It is erect with hairy branches. The leaves are oval-shaped and are usually 2-6 centimeters long and 2-3 wide, pale bluish green, fuzzy on both surfaces, occasionally glandular. The small, white, urn-shaped flowers are borne in bunched inflorescences. The fruit is a red drupe about a centimeter in diameter. The seed requires either fire or consumption by animals in order for germination to occur. This manzanita grows in open, rocky areas. It is sometimes grown as a garden ornamental. Hybrids with Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (named Arctostaphylos x media) commonly occur where the two parent species grow in proximity.