Partridge Berry Plant -12-18"

Partridge Berry Plants - Mitchella repens

This beautiful and attractive woodland plant with highly ornamental foliage has many other names: squaw vine, squawberry, two-eyed berry, Winberry, running box, and pigeon plum. It was named Wildflower of the Year in 2012. A North American low-growing, herbaceous, perennial shrub belonging to the madder family (Rubiaceae), the name is the Latin adjective repens, meaning "creeping." This evergreen plant with scarlet berries grows as a non-climbing vine that reaches no taller than two inches with its creeping stems 15 to 30 cm long. The shiny dark green rounded leaves with a pale yellow midrib are paired oppositely on the stalks. The petioles are short. The roots may grow at the nodes, and the stems root and branch repeatedly, which produces the loose spreading mats. The axillary fragrant pinkish-white flowers are in small and trumpet-shaped pairs, with each pair arising from one common calyx. Each flower has one pistil, four stamens, and four white petals. There are either flowers with long pistils and short stamens or short pistils and long stamens, and the pollen from one does not fertilize the other. It can be used as a groundcover underneath acid-loving shrubs and in terraria during the winter. The name suggests that partridges relish the berries, but various birds and mammals also consume them. In fact, Indian women often drank a tea made from the leaves as a childbirth aid.
'Squaw Root' in this case does not refer to the common name of various Cohosh plants, but instead for the attractive tuber which grows out of the ground resembling a yellow pinecone or ear of corn. Cohosh is native to the eastern half of North America and has traditionally been used as an herbal treatment for various ailments.