Although called a bush or shrub, the Kings Mountain manzanita has a single trunk much like a tree. The red coloration is common to most manzanita plants.

A small tree/shrub, usually about 6 feet (2 meters) in height but able to grow to twice that height. Because this was a small specimen, it was easy to photograph the trunk from inside its branches.

Inside the tree/shrub were its classic manzanita branches. One reason this plant is threatened is because its curving red branches were once in high demand for decoration. In the 1970's the San Francisco Flower Mart offered huge bins of manzanita branches for sale that had been cleared for property development up the coast. Macy's downtown San Francisco store used them several times in the 1970's as design elements in their fashion windows.

Stand back from this manzanita and it appears to be just another dense bush but with wavy branches.

The leaves of the Kings Mountain manzanita were shaped like the intersection of a Venn diagram, where two circles overlap. To the touch, they felt fuzzy but not uncomfortably so.

This side shot shows the arrangement of the leaves along the branch.

The branches of the Kings Mountain manzanita create a beautifully dramatic scene. The suggestion of movement, even when static on a non-windy day, lends manzanita its uniquely disquieting mood.