PARTRIDGE VINE TWINBERRY MITCHELLAVINE SQUAWBERRY
(Mitchella repens) Madder family
Flowers - Waxy, white (pink in bud), fragrant, growing in pairs
at ends of the branches. Calyx usually 4-lobed; corolla
funnel-form, about 1/2 in. long, the 4 spreading lobes bearded
within; 4 stamens inserted on corolla throat; style with
4
stigmas; the ovaries of the twin flowers united. (The style is
long when the stamens are short, or vice versa). Stem: Slender,
trailing, rooting at joints, 6 to 12 in. long, with numerous
erect branches. Leaves: Opposite, entire, short petioled, oval or
rounded, evergreen, dark, sometimes white veined. Fruit: A small,
red, edible, double berry-like drupe.
Preferred Habitat - Woods; usually, but not always, dry ones.
Flowering Season - April-June. Sometimes again in autumn.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Gulf States, westward to
Minnesota and Texas.
A carpet of these dark, shining, little evergreen leaves, spread
at the foot of forest trees, whether sprinkled over in June with
pairs of waxy, cream-white, pink-tipped, velvety, lilac-scented
flowers that suggest attenuated arbutus blossoms, or with
coral-red "berries" in autumn and winter, is surely one of the
loveliest sights in the woods. Transplanted to the home garden in
closely packed, generous clumps, with plenty of leaf-mould, or,
better still, chopped sphagnum, about them, they soon spread into
thick mats in the rockery, the hardy fernery, or about the roots
of rhododendrons and the taller shrubs that permit some sunlight
to reach them. No woodland creeper rewards our care with greater
luxuriance of growth. Growing near our homes, the partridge vine
offers an excellent opportunity for study.
The two flowers at the tip of a branch may grow distinct down to
their united ovaries, or their tubes may be partly united, like
Siamese twins - a union which in either case accounts for the odd
shape of the so-called berry, that shows further traces of
consolidation in its "two eyes," the remnants of eight calyx
teeth. Experiment proves that when only one of the twin flowers
is pollenized by insects (excluded from the other one by a net),
fruit is rarely set; but when both are, a healthy seeded berry
follows. To secure cross-fertilization, the partridge flower,
like the bluets (q.v.), occurs in two different forms on distinct
plants, seed from either producing after its kind. In one form
the style is low within the tube, and the stamens protrude; in
the other form the stamens are concealed, and the style, with its
four spreading stigmas, is exserted. No single flower matures
both its reproductive organs. Short-tongued small bees and flies
cannot reach the nectar reserved for the blossom's benefactors
because of the hairs inside the tube, which nearly close it; but
larger bees and butterflies coming to suck a flower with tall
stamens receive pollen on the precise spot on their long tongues
that will come in contact with the sticky stigmas of the
long-styled form visited later, and there rub the pollen off. The
lobes' velvety surface keeps insect feet from slipping.
What endless confusion arises through giving the same popular
folk names to different species! The Bob White, which is called
quail in New England or wherever the ruffed grouse is known as
partridge, is called partridge in the Middle and Southern States,
where the ruffed grouse is known as pheasant. But as both these
distributing agents, like most winter rovers, whether bird or
beast, are inordinately fond of this tasteless partridge berry,
as well as of the spicy fruit of quite another species, the
aromatic wintergreen (q.v.), which shares with it a number of
common names, every one may associate whatever bird and berry
that best suit him. The delicious little twin-flower, beloved of
Linnaeus, also comes in for a share of lost identity through
confusion with the partridge vine.
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Next: CLEAVERS GOOSEGRASS BEDSTRAW
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