Reflections in Nature: Partridgeberry is an important food for grouse

PHOTO PROVIDED Shown are checkerberries.
Although I was a deer hunter for about 60 years, I miss grouse hunting more than I do deer hunting. When I reminisce about hunting it is usually about a grouse hunt.
One grouse hunt in particular comes to mind. We had flushed several grouse and I was able to put one of the birds in my game bag. Just as all grouse hunters do, I checked the the dead bird’s crop and found it was packed with green leaves and red berries.
I began checking the area to see where the red berries had come from when I noticed a small green plant with a red berry growing on the forest floor. Many times, I had eaten these red berries, but the taste was not at all what I thought a teaberry should taste.
I took several pictures of the plant to later identify. Several days later I began looking through books and found that the plant is known as the partridgeberry (squaw vine or deer berry). The plant’s scientific name is Mitchella repens.
The genus name was given to the plant by Linnaeus for his friend John Mitchell, who was the physician that developed a method for treating yellow fever. The species name of repens refers to its trailing or creeping habit. The common name of partridgeberry was given because the fruits are eaten by ruffed grouse. The berries are eaten during the fall and winter months, while the leaves are eaten year-round.
This plant is reported to be one of the most important foods of the grouse in the Northeast. Also the stems and leaves make up a small portion of the deer’s winter diet.
The partridgeberry is common here in Northern Pennsylvania. It is a small and woody trailing vine, with 6-12 inch slender trailing stems. This plant does not climb but lays on the forest floor, with the trailing stems sending down roots. The leaves remain a dark green color throughout the year.
In late spring, two white flowers appear. The structure of the flowers prevents each from fertilizing itself. Each flower must be pollinated by insects to obtain a single scarlet berry. A berry is the result of the fusion of each ovary of the pollinated pair of white flowers.
Squaw berry was another common name given to the plant. The women of Native American tribes drank a tea made from the berries during their final weeks of pregnancy to ease the pain of childbirth. The tea was also to provide relief from menstrual cramps.
The red berries that I had eaten were from the partridgeberry plant and not the teaberry. The two plants appear much the same and grow in the same habitat, however, the easiest way to tell them apart is by tasting a berry. The teaberry has a pleasant taste of wintergreen, while a partridgeberry has a bland taste.
The wintergreen’s scientific name is Gaultheria procumbent, with the genus name given by the Swedish explorer Pehr Kalm in honor of his friend Jean Gaulthier, an early French physician and naturalist. The species name means lying flat on the ground.
The common name of teaberry comes from the red berries that were used to make tea. The wintergreen comes from the taste of the leaves and the berries. This plant was the original source of wintergreen oil used to flavor candies and used as a spice. Oil extracted from the leaves by distillation became an ingredient in many medicines.
Teaberry-flavor gum was famously produced by D. L. Clark Company of Pittsburgh under the name Clark’s teaberry gum. During the 1960s there was an ad campaign featuring the teaberry shuffle dance. Teaberry ice cream originated in Pennsylvania. I remember as a young boy going to an ice cream shop in Shamokin and always ordering a teaberry ice cream cone.
The slow growing plant was soon over harvested, and this led to a second source of wintergreen extract made from the black birch.
It was discovered that wintergreen flavored oil could be derived from oil that is concentrated in the inner bark and young twigs of the black birch tree. To do this a birch still was built in the woods. The still needed to have constant attention so a small shanty was built near the still for the stiller to live in.
The black birch, which is not a very large tree, was cut down with an axe and then skidded to the still. Each branch was cut into a four-foot length to fit into the still. Once the still was filled with birch branches, water was added, and the lid was sealed. The fire built under the still would only be hot enough to allow the water to simmer. The steam collected in the coil and after passing through the chilly water, it condensed into a white liquid known as low wine.
The still operator collected the liquid in a glass jar at the end of the coil. It was allowed to set overnight. The oil in the low wine would settle to the bottom of the jar, and the liquid on top would be put back in the still to cook again.
One hundred birch saplings were needed to yield a quart of wintergreen oil, and due to this, the black birch almost became extinct. Black birch was saved just in time when a synthetic wintergreen oil was produced.
Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.