HERB TO KNOW
Gaultheria procumbens
Family Ericaceae
Perennial
When you see the word wintergreen, you most
likely think of the sweet, spicy taste of Wint-O-green Life Savers
or some other breath mint or chewing gum that’s common on grocery
store shelves. At one time, the source of their flavor would have
been wintergreen or sweet birch (Betula lenta), whose bark and
twigs are easier to harvest and yield a volatile oil virtually
identical to that of wintergreen. Today, the flavoring in these
products—and most of the commercial “wintergreen essential oil”
that you can buy—is synthetic, but the wintergreen plant is still
highly regarded and used by foragers and herbalists for both food
and medicine, and gardeners welcome it to carpet shady
landscapes.
Wintergreen (G. procumbens) is native from Newfoundland to
Manitoba and south to Georgia. It is hardy from USDA Zone 3 to the
cooler parts of Zone 7. Look for the plants in well-drained
woodlands and clearings, and in acidic, frequently poor soil in the
shade of evergreens such as mountain laurel and rhododendrons.
Wintergreen is a creeper (procumbens means “lying flat”.
Inconspicuous stems sprawl on or just below the soil surface. At
intervals, erect, mostly naked stems rise 3 to 7 inches above the
ground, and a few leathery, oval leaves up to 2 inches long with
barely visible rounded teeth are clustered near the top. The leaves
are glossy and dark green above, paler and dotted with glands
underneath, and they turn red or bronze in the fall. In July and
August, white or pink-tinged bell-like flowers about 1/4 inch long
hang singly from short stalks in the leaf axils, each “bell” having
five small scallops at the open end. The 1/4-inch round scarlet
fruits, technically capsules enclosed in a fleshy calyx but
popularly known as berries, persist on the plants through the
following summer. Thus, it is possible to see a plant bearing this
year’s flowers and last year’s fruit at the same time. It’s more
typical, though, to see a sparse patch of greenery with neither
flowers nor berries.