Flower:

Hanging, single flowers on short, hairy stalks in the leaf axils, sporadic along the undersides of the running stems. Flowers are white, bell-like, 1/16 to 1/8 inch across, with 4 dully pointed, broadly oval petal lobes that are slightly flaring. 2 light green bracts embrace the base and a squarish ring of dull orange stamens encircle the single whitish style in the flower center.

Leaves and stems:

Leaves are alternate, simple, evergreen, broadly elliptical to nearly round, ¼ to 1/3 inch long and 1/8 to ¼ inch wide, barely pointed at the tip, the upper surface smooth and dark green, the edges toothless but with widely spaced, bristly hairs. The underside is light green with scattered short, appressed, bristly hairs. Stems are woody with scaly hairs, rooting at the nodes and forming dense, sprawling mats over the mossy hummocks on which they grow.

Fruit:

Fruit is a white berry about ¼ inch in diameter with scattered brown hairs on the surface.

Notes:

Creeping Snowberry is a dwarf shrub, common throughout east central and northeast Minnesota in moist, sphagnum bogs and black spruce forests, typically on top of mossy rocks and hummocks. The dense mats of evergreen leaves are easy to spot and recognize year round but flowering is very early, the sparse flowers not readily noticeable without turning over the branches where they hang from the underside. Fruiting is sparse, the small white berries mildly sweet and wintergreen flavored. Plants spread mostly by asexual reproduction from stems rooting at the nodes as they creep across the mossy substrate. The mat of leaves resembles other members of the Heath family, most notably the cranberries, but Creeping Snowberry is easily distinguished by the bristly hairs on its woody stems and the underside of leaves.