Trees or shrubs with narrow flat evergreen or deciduous leaves and a drupe-like fruit.

A small straggling tree or shrub seldom over 20 feet high and up to 12 inches in diameter; bark thin, covered with greenish-purple scales; leaves about ½ an inch long, linear-lanceolate, flat, dark yellowish-green above, paler below with stout midribs and rigid points; fruit a fleshy crimson disc ⅓ of an inch long and as broad, surrounding the hard, nearly black, depressed seed.

Occurs locally in the Selkirks, forming much of the underwood on Beaver Creek.