Gaultheria procumbens

Wintergreen

Wintergreen, Little Beartrack Lake, BWCAW
Photo © by Earl J.S. Rook

Flora, fauna, earth, and sky...
The natural history of the northwoods

Name:

• Gaultheria, for Jean Franois Gaultier (1708-1756), Canadian physician and botanist who made botanical studies of the Quebec region with Swedish botanist Peter Kalm (1716-1779). Kalm, an associate of Linnaeus, named the genus Gaultheria in honor of Gaultier in 1753.
• procumbens, from the Latin, "prostrate"
• Common Name from its evergreen leaves.
• Other common names include Box Berry, Checkerberry, Deerberry, Eastern Teaberry, Ground Holly, Mountain Tea, Creeping Wintergreen, Ground Tea, Partridge-Berry, Petit the du bois (Quebec, "little tea of the woods"), Redberry Wintergreen, Spice Berry, Teaberry, Winisibugons (Ojibwe, "dirty leaf")

Taxonomy:

• Kingdom Plantae, the Plants
• Division Magnoliophyta, the Angiosperms (flowering plants)
  • Class Magnoliopsida, the Dicotyledons
  • Subclass Dilleniidae
    • Order Ericales
      • Family Ericaceae, the Heaths, with Bog Rosemary (Andromeda polifolia var. glaucophylla), Bearberry (Arctostaphyllos uva-ursi), Leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata), Bog Laurel (Kalmia polifolia), Labrador Teas (Ledum spp.), and the blueberries, bilberries, and cranberries (Vaccinium spp.).
        • Genus Gaultheria, with Creeping Snowberry and Salal
• Taxonomic Serial Number: 23657
• Also known as Pyrola umbellata, Gaultheria repens, Brossea procumbens
• Assigned by some to Family Pyrolaceae, the Pyrolas (Shinleafs).

Description:

• A ¼, ½, ¾, º, é
• Leaves
• Stem
• Roots
• Flowers
• Sepals
• Petals
• Stamens
• Pistils
• Ovary superior (within blossom) inferior (below flower)
• Fruit
• Seed
• A broadleaf evergreen shrublet.
• Leaves thick, toothed, glossy, lanceolate, 4 "- 8".
• Flowers white, bell-like, often with a touch of pink, in 2 or 3 flower umbels.
• Fruit a berry, reddish violet, globose, 6-9 mm long; minty, with a rather spongy texture.
• Seeds many, orange-yellow, wedge shaped, 1-1.3 mm long, 0.8-1 mm wide, wingless.

Identification:

• Identifiable as
• Distinguished from
• Field Marks

Distribution:

• Alaska to Newfoundland,
• Circumboreal

Habitat:

• Open shade
• Dry or moist sites in pine woods
• Sandy, acid soil (pH 5 to 6)
• Dry to wet woods and clearings; white pine woods, sandy, peaty pine/oak scrub, sphagnum bogs, pine barrens, swamps. Dry and moist upland peat and wet sphagnum peat.

Fire:

Associates:

• Trees: Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea), Red Maple (Acer rubrum), Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera), White Spruce (Picea glauca), Black Spruce (Picea mariana), Jack Pine (Pinus banksiana), Red Pine (Pinus resinosa), White Pine (Pinus strobus), Large Leaf Aspen (Populus grandidentata), Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides), Pin Cherry (Prunus pensylvanica), Red Oak (Quercus borealis), Northern Pin Oak (Quercus ellipsoidalis)
• Shrubs: Green Alder (Alnus crispa), Juneberries (Amelanchier spp), Pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata), Sweet Fern (Comptonia peregrina), Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis), Round Leaf Dogwood (Cornus rugosa), Beaked Hazel (Corylus cornuta), Low Bush Honeysuckle (Diervilla lonicera), Trailing Arbutus (Epigea repens), Creeping Snowberry (Gaultheria hispidula), Common Juniper (Juniperus communis), Twinflower (Linnaea borealis), Fly Honeysuckle (Lonicera canadensis), Late Low Blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium), Velvet Leaf Blueberry (Vaccinium myrtilloides)
• Herbs: Wild Sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis), Large Leaf Aster (Aster macrophyllus), Blue Bead Lily (Clintonia borealis), Gold Thread (Coptis trifolia), Moccasin Flower (Cypripedium acaule), Dwarf Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera repens), Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense), Bracken Fern (Pteridium aquilinum), Shinleaf (Pyrola spp.), Pale Pea (Lathyrus ochroleucus), Three Part Bedstraw (Galium spp.), Starflower (Trientalis borealis), Violets (Viola spp.)
• Ground Covers: Reindeer Mosses (Cladonia spp.), Dicranum Mosses (Dicranum spp.), Clubmosses (Lycopodium spp.), Running Club Moss, Lycopodium clavatum), Ground Pine Clubmoss (Lycopodiumobscurum), Schreber's Feathermoss (Pleurozium schreberi), Hair Cap Moss (Polystrichum commune)
• Wildlife: Fruit is eaten by a variety of mammals and birds including: chipmunks, deer, grouse, and partridge. Leaves browsed by deer and moose.

History:

• Used by Native Americans to brew a tea
• Mohawks, as well as Ojibwes, and others, knew the tea as medicinal as well as a healthful beverage. It contains methyl salycliates, the active painkilllers of asprin, useful for colds, headaches, and to bring down fevers. Such names as "teaberry" emphasize importance as a year-round beverage, and as a food flavoring for meat and fish cooked with fermented leaves.

Uses:

• Source of "wintergreen oil," which was used as a flavoring in candies, chewing gum, and some medicine. The berries are cooked into pies and eaten raw during the winter by some tribes. The leaves are used as a tea called mountain tea
• Oil of Gaultheria, or wintergreen oil, is derived via steam distillation. It contains methyl salicylate, which is antiseptic, analgesic, carminative, and antirheumatic. Overdoses of wintergreen oil can be toxic.
• Medicine: A tea from the leaves eased symptoms of rheumatism. Oil of wintergreen has aspirin-like properties.
• Food: The leaves were used as a potherb or eaten as a snack. Bright red berries ripen in autumn and improve with freezing so harvest them in the winter or spring.

Reproduction:

• Sexually by seed
• Flowers
• Assexually by
• Reproduces by seed and vegetatively by rhizomes
• Flowers July/August. Small, bell-like white flowers in early to mid-summer
• Birds and rodents eat the berries in the winter.
• Pollination by Bumblebees (Bombus spp). Flowers most commonly visited by Bombus species (B. bimaculatus, B. griseocollis, B. impatiens, B. perplexus, B. ternarius, B. terricola, B. vagans) but also visited by Apis mellifera. Autogamy is possible but usually not very effective.
• Seed dispersal by animal consumers

Propagation:

• By seed, started in July in a mix of acid peat and sand in cold frame.
• By division in early spring

Cultivation:

• Hardy to USDA Zone 3 (average minimum annual temperature -40ºF)
• Cultural Requirements
• Sun
• Soil
• Water
• Spacing
• Fertilization
• Size 12"-18"W x 12"-18"H
• Growth rate
• Good for
• Cultivars include
• variety 'Alba', with
• Cultivars and species available by mail order from specialty suppliers or at local nurseries
• Partial shade and acidic soil with plenty of organic matter.
• Spreads by stolons at an approximate rate of 4"-6" annually.

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