In a strict sense neither of these plants produces a berry; for
the fruit of the true partridge[berry] vine (Mitchella repens) is
a double drupe, or stone bearer, each half containing four hard,
seed-like nutlets; while the wintergreen's so called berry is
merely the calyx grown thick, fleshy, and gaily colored - only a
coating for the five-celled ovary that contains the minute seeds.
Little baskets of wintergreen berries bring none too high prices
in the fancy fruit and grocery shops when we calculate how many
charming plants such unnatural use of them sacrifices.
Closely allied to the wintergreen is the RED BEARBERRY,
KINNIKINIC, BEAR'S GRAPE, FOXBERRY or MEALBERRY, as it is
variously called (Arctostaphylos-uva-ursi = bearberry). Trailing
its spreading branches over sandy ground, rocky hillsides and
steeps until it sometimes forms luxuriant mats, it closely
resembles its cousin the arbutus in its manner of growth, and has
been mistaken for it by at least one poet. But its tiny, rounded,
urn-shaped flowers, which come in May and June, are white, not
salver form and pink; the entire plant is not rusty-hairy; the
dark little leathery evergreen leaves are spatulate, and,
moreover, it bears small but abundant clusters of round,
berry-like fruit, an attainment the arbutus still struggles for,
but cannot yet reach.
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