Species in the genus include:[5][6] The best known species, D. spinosa ('Chilean holly'), is a native of rainforests and mountain slopes in southern Central America and South America, occurring from Costa Rica in the north to certain islands of Tierra del Fuego (shared by Chile and Argentina) in the extreme South, being present also in Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.

It has glossy dark green, holly-like leaves, and waxy red tubular flowers, often with yellow tips, and reaching 4 cm (1.6 in) in length.

[8] In 2001, D. spinosa was described for the first time as having been observed growing as a (fully autotrophic) epiphyte, the host tree in question being the lahuán / alerce - the gigantic and extremely long-lived conifer Fitzroya cupressoides.

'[9] The sole seed-dispersal vector for both epiphytic and terrestrial populations of Desfontainia in the Fitzroya forest remnants of Chile and Argentina is the chumaihuén (Dromiciops gliroides), an edible dormouse-like marsupial 20 cm (7.9 in) in length (including tail).

Largely arboreal and nocturnal, Dromiciops distributes in its faeces the seeds of many of the berry-bearing, endemic plants present in its range, including those of not one, but two shrubs hallucinogenic to humans: Desfontainia spinosa (see below) and Gaultheria insana, formerly known as Pernettya furens (Ericaceae).

Desfontainia flowers are mostly of a true red (scarlet as opposed to deep pink) but, seen with the green-sensitive component of a bee's vision, still present enough of a contrast with green foliage to be noticeable and thus pollinatable.

hookeri has been reported as a narcotic utilized by the Mapuche people of Chile by Carlos Mariani Ramirez, who also likened the bitterness of the plant to that of Gentian and mentioned its use as a yellow dye.

[18] The greenish-yellow, baccate fruit of D. spinosa is reputedly even more intoxicating than the foliage of the plant and is reported occasionally to have been brewed into a potently psychoactive type of chicha (see also Saliva-fermented beverages).

Also present are loganin and secoxyloganin, compounds related to secologanin a molecule involved in the mevalonate pathway leading to, inter alia, terpenoid and steroid biosynthesis.