Loiseleuria

Loiseleuria 

a genus of plants of the family Ericaceae, comprising a single species, the alpine azalea (Loiseleuria procumbens). They are prostrate evergreen subshrubs, which form thick pulvinate mats. The leaves are small, crowded, leathery, and opposite. The pink or white flowers are gathered in groups of two to five at the end of branches in an umbel-like raceme. The alpine azalea, which grows on bald mountains, in rocky lichen-covered and thicketed tundras, and in groves of dwarf stone pines, is distributed in the circumpolar and northern regions of Eurasia and North America, as well as in the mountains of Eurasia. It is cultivated in rock gardens.