Plants (3-)6-10 dm, forming small colonies; branches ascending to ± spreading; twigs of current season grayish brown, puberulent and glandular-hairy. Leaves: petiole to 1.5 mm; blade light green abaxially, shiny dark green adaxially, oblanceolate to obovate, 2-4 × 1-2 cm, subcoriaceous, base cuneate, margins entire (scattered stipitate-glandular-hairy and ciliate, 7-10 cilia per mm), apex obtuse to subacute, mucronate, surfaces persistently stipitate-glandular-hairy and sessile-glandular. Inflorescences erect or arching, 3-7-flowered, bracteate, 2-5 cm, stipitate-glandular-hairy and hairy; bracts persistent, leaflike, 2-5 mm, expanding to 5-10 mm, longer than pedicels, densely stipitate-glandular-hairy (hairs 0.3-0.5 mm). Pedicels 2-4 mm, stipitate-glandular-hairy; bracteoles 1-2, 2-5 mm. Flowers: sepals 5, 2 mm, densely stipitate-glandular-hairy (hairs 0.3-0.5 mm); petals 5, corolla white to pink or reddish, campanulate, 6.5-7.5 mm (averaging 7 mm), lobes triangular, 1.2-1.7 mm; filaments 0.3-0.5 mm, moderately hairy; anthers included, 3.2-4 mm (averaging 3.7 mm), thecae divergent distally; ovary stipitate-glandular-hairy (hairs 0.3-0.5 mm). Drupes juicy, insipid, black, 6-8 mm diam., moderately glandular-hairy. Seeds 1.7-2 mm.

Flowering late spring-early summer. Wet, acidic, peat bogs, sphagnum-shrub swamps, beaver wetlands, Atlantic white cedar swamps, peat-based pocosins; 0-500 m; N.B., Nfld. and Labr. (Nfld.), N.S., P.E.I., Que.; Conn., Del., D.C., Maine, Md., Mass., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Pa., R.I., S.C.

Gaylussacia bigeloviana has been confused with G. dumosa; there are points of difference, including plant height, corolla size, vestiture, habitat, and the northeastern-centered range of G. bigeloviana. Occurrences in North Carolina are in large, peat-based pocosins that lie mostly within Carolina bay geomorphological formations. The single South Carolina population occurs in an Atlantic white cedar wetland.