Shrubs, erect or mound-forming, 0.5-1.5 m; burl absent; bark on older stems persistent, dark red with translucent, grayish patches, smooth; twigs finely glandular-hairy. Leaves erect; petiole 1-3 mm; blade bright green, shiny, narrowly elliptic, 0.6-1.5 × 0.3-0.8 cm, base cuneate, margins entire, plane, surfaces rough, papillate, sparsely finely glandular-hairy . Inflorescences racemes, simple or 1-branched; immature inflorescence pendent, axis 0.5-1 cm, 1+ mm diam., finely glandular-hairy; bracts not appressed, scalelike, deltate, 1-2 mm, apex acuminate, surfaces glabrous. Pedicels 1-3 mm, glabrous. Flowers: corolla white, urceolate; ovary white-hairy. Fruits subcylindric, 3-4 mm diam., glabrous. Stones distinct, (breaking apart when mature). 2n = 26.

Flowering winter-early spring. Exposed acidic, whitish, clay soils (oxisols); of conservation concern; 30-200 m; Calif.

Arctostaphylos myrtifolia is known only from the lower Sierra Nevada foothills near Ione in the eastern part of the Central Valley.