English babytears

Nertera granadensis, the coral bead plant or English babytears, is a creeping, mat-forming perennial herb in the family Rubiaceae, with an unusually wide native range that spans the cool montane and temperate zones of Central and South America, the Andes, the South Atlantic islands, New Zealand, Tasmania, southeast Australia and parts of southeast Asia. It forms dense, low cushions only 1-2 cm high, made up of slender, branching, rooting stems clothed in small opposite, broadly ovate, glossy green leaves 4-7 mm long with characteristic interpetiolar stipules. In early summer minute, solitary, four-lobed, greenish-white flowers are produced inconspicuously in the leaf axils, followed by the conspicuous and ornamental fruits: bright orange-red, fleshy, drupe-like berries 5-10 mm across that cover the cushion in autumn. It is widely grown as a houseplant or alpine novelty for its showy beadlike fruit.