Foothills, montane, subalpine.  Woodlands.  Spring.
Mesa Verde National Park, Prater Ridge Trail, May 14, 2004.

Sometimes common, sometimes even abundant, Mountain Lover is almost always unnoticed.  Once you become aware of it though, you will find it often.  Looking like a miniature Boxwood, it hugs the ground with slender branches up to several feet long.  It often grows no higher than a foot tall under trees and taller bushes; here it is pictured growing from a crack in a rock face.  Its tiny, evergreen, leathery, slightly serrated leaves are a light yellow/green when they begin growing and then change to a shiny, deep, luxuriant green (more noticeable in the bottom picture).  If you get down on your knees you will find, tucked into the leaf axils, tiny tubular flowers with red, flared petals.

Meriwether Lewis collected the first specimen of this plant for science in the Rockies in present-day Idaho in 1806.  The plant was at first named Ilex myrsinites by Frederick Pursh in 1814 and was renamed Paxistima myrsinites by Constantine Rafinesque in 1838.  "Paxistima" is Greek for "thick stigma"; "myrsinites", Greek for "myrtle", was applied to Mountain Lover for its resemblance to members of the Myrtle Family (Myrtaceae).

Foothills, montane, subalpine.  Woodlands.  Spring.
Bear Creek Trail, June 14, 2005.