Wintergreen (gaultheria procumbens)

Wintergreen or eastern teaberry (Gaultheria procumbens)
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2010, all rights reserved

I'm going to start off the list of plants that grow in my yard with one that was a very pleasant surprise when I moved here. Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), sometimes called Eastern Teaberry, is one of the edible native plants that lives in the woods in my yard. It is very plentiful, growing in the shade of the forest canopy. Wintergreen is both edible and potentially deadly poisonous, so please read the information contained in the linked article. It happens to be one of the few plants about which I've already written for Examiner.com so I'm going to refer you to the link below for what I wrote there which includes medicinal properties and poison warnings.

• Read more about Wintergreen

Additionally, I will tell you that this spring, 2011, seemed to be a very good year for new wintergreen plants. The reddish young leaves of new plants seemed to be springing up everywhere.

To date, I haven't found any evidence of the plant being eaten by anything (other than myself). It seems to be pretty well left alone by insects and other herbivores. It grows in normal to moist soil conditions in the shade or very dappled sunlight. It gets it's name, as you might guess, because it stays green and keeps its leaves all year, through even the coldest of New England winters. Given the low light environment in which it lives, it must find it more economical of energy and nutrients to preserve its leaves through winter than to try to grow new ones every spring. Keeping the leaves through winter, of course, also gives wintergreen an advantage in the spring time, it can take advantage of the bare canopies overhead while the sun's indirect rays are still relatively weak in the early part of the year.

I recall that in grade school many years ago in southern Vermont, when we learned how to make little terrariums, wintergreen was one of the plants we sought. It needs little light, can live in humid and moist environment, was very slow growing, and of course, doesn't drop its leaves and look dead in the winter. As a bonus, depending upon the plant you found, it might also have a bright red berry to give the terrarium a little bit of color.

Quick Facts about Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens)

Edible: Yes, in small quantities. Can be fermented to make a tea.
Life cycle: Perennial, evergreen
Propagation: Spreading underground rhizomes, less often by seeds contained in berry
Other uses: Essential oil, medicinal uses (See linked article above for details)
Range: Eastern North America from the Gulf of Mexico and north through out eastern Canada (from the USDA website)
Native or introduced: Native, undomesticated
Poisonous: Yes, in quantity. Wintergreen essential oil has been known to cause fatalities through both ingestion and excessive topical use.

Introduction

Hello and welcome to "What Grows in my Yard?" I recently began a project to to identify every living animal that lives in my yard and have decided to expand that to cover every living plant as well. Well, technically, more than just plants as, I guess, fungus is in its own category now and doesn't fall into the plant kingdom.

Anyway, the yard consists of 5.25 acres in Southern New Hampshire, about 30 miles from the Seacoast and at about 800 feet in elevation on average (some higher, some lower). About 1 acre is consumed by the house, driveway, lawn and vegetable gardens. the rest is forested. It's generally a mixed deciduous/ coniferous forest, but there are a couple of areas with very small pine barrens (perhaps 100 feet by 100 feet where very little other than pine trees grow and the forest floor is covered inches deep in pine needles. There are also two seasonal streams that tend to run dry around mid-July each year, and a small area that stays muddy and wet all year round.

From a plant habitat point of view, it's quite varied. When you add in all the domestic plants that we've added to the landscaping around the house, there's a huge number of different plant and fungus species here.

Let me be clear right up front. I am not a botanist or a plant expert, by any means. I've spent decades in and around the forests of New England and know at least common names for a fair variety of plants, but for most I'll be doing research to try to identify the plants that I find, much like the way I do for animals on my What Lives in My Yard Blog.

• Read the Master List of Animals that Live in my Yard

On that blog, I expect to identify around 1000 species of animals that live in my yard. If I had to guess how many plant and fungus species grow in my yard, I'd guess about the same number.

I'll be breaking the entries into two categories, native and introduced. Introduced will be used for anything that I have manually added to the yard. An apple tree, pole beans, daffodils, chives, and so forth whether they are native to the region or not.

I'll also detail which plants are edible, poisonous, or have other uses, relying on both my own experience and the research I'll do for each one. I'll relate any interesting information about the plant (like how to make birch beer and maple syrup), its formal taxonomic classification, and I'll note any insects or animals that appear to be feeding on it or using it as a home. I'll also note and apparent symbiots or parasites (fungus growing on a tree trunk, for example). For domestic or introduced plants, I'll also include a little about the care and propagation of the plant.

• Read more about taxonomy and the classification of living things

Sooner or later, I'll cover every plant and fungus that's growing in my yard. That'll include all of my perennial flowers and herbs, annual vegetables and flowers, mushrooms, trees, grasses, berries bushes, mosses and everything else.

Additionally, since I use a greenhouse, hydroponics, and various other methods and equipment to grow and propagate plants, I'll offer my experience with these as well. 

If any or all of that sounds interesting, I urge you to use one of the follow this blog functions found in the side panels to subscribe.