UVA URSI (U. S. P.)—UVA URSI. History and Description

Uva ursi is a perennial evergreen, common in the northern part of Europe and America, growing on sterile, gravelly ridges, and dry, sandy soils. It flowers from June to September, and ripens its berries during the winter. The leaves are the parts used; the green leaves alone should be selected, picked from the twigs in the fall, and dried by exposure to a moderate heat. They are frequently adulterated with whortleberry or cowberry leaves. These adulterations may be detected by observing that the uva ursi leaf is reticulated beneath, while the whortleberry leaf is merely dotted. The leaves of pipsissewa are longer, cuneate-lanceolate, and sharply serrated. Uva ursi leaves are odorless, except when in powder, which is of a light-brown color, with a shade of greenish-yellow, and has nearly the smell of good grass hay, and to the taste is at first smartly astringent and bitterish, which sensations gradually soften into a liquorice flavor. The leaves yield their properties to water or alcohol, forming, with the latter, a green tincture, which is rendered turbid by water, causing a deposit of green resin. As officially described, uva ursi leaves are "very short-stalked, obovate or oblong-spatulate, coriaceous, from 15 to 20 Mm. (⅗ to ⅘ inch) long, and 5 to 8 Mm. (⅕ to ⅓ inch) broad, obtuse, slightly revolute on the margin, upper surface with depressed veins; lower surface distinctly reticulate; odor faint, hay-like; taste strongly astringent, and somewhat bitter"—(U. S. P.).