Arctostaphylos uva-ursi creeps across the thin, acidic soils of northern forests and mountain ranges with the patience of a plant that has been doing this since the Pleistocene. Low-growing to six inches or so, it forms a tight, prostrate mat of small, leathery, dark green leaves that bronze attractively in winter before returning to green in spring. In late spring the small pink, urn-shaped flowers appear, followed by green berries that slowly mature to red by autumn. Bears eat them — hence the common name and the Greek-Latin scientific name, both meaning roughly 'bear grape' — though humans find them mealy and flavorless. The real value is ecological: bearberry is a larval host plant for three butterfly species, the hoary elfin, brown elfin, and freija fritillary, which depend on it in ways that no substitute plant can replicate.

In gardens it excels as a ground cover on dry, sandy, or rocky slopes where most other plants decline, and it makes a reliable erosion-control plant for difficult banks. It is drought tolerant and low maintenance once established, asking for well-drained, light-textured soil and not much else. Fertilization and soil compaction both harm it; it does not transplant well, so placement decisions should be made carefully. Propagation by stem cuttings or layering is more reliable than by seed. It struggles in the humid, wet summers of the eastern United States, making it best suited to drier climates, mountain gardens, or the Pacific Northwest, where it is most thoroughly at home.