bunchberry

Photo: original: JohnHarvey; derivative: Peter coxhead — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 2 through 6

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

⚠ Honestly: mild, faintly sweet, soft/mealy "pudding-berry" — pleasant but bland fresh; better cooked into jam or pudding. Grown as much as a groundcover as for fruit. Unripe berries may cause mild stomach upset; pulp and stone are hard to separate.

Hardiness

Zone 2–6

Habit

Groundcover

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Late summer (bright red berry clusters)

Mature size

Rhizomatous herbaceous groundcover 5–20 cm

Light

Shade to partial

Soil pH

5.5–7.5

Environment

Boreal

Native range

Boreal and cool-temperate North America and north-east Asia, from Greenland and Alaska south through the Rockies and Appalachians — the floor of mossy conifer forest, usually on cold, acid, humus-rich ground.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

2–3 yrs from planted rhizome divisions

Growth speed

Slow — a colony creeps outward a few centimetres a year

Spacing

25 cm (10 in) apart — about 16 per m² (15 per 10 sq ft)

Leaf shape

A whorl of four to six oval leaves 3–8 cm at the top of each short stem, strongly parallel-veined in the dogwood manner, turning wine-red in autumn. The 'flower' above them is four white bracts around a cluster of tiny true flowers.

Root system

A thin, wiry, shallow rhizome running through moss and leaf litter, sending up single stems as it goes — the whole patch is usually one plant. It has no drought reserve at all and depends on permanent cool moisture, which is why bunchberry is so hard to establish in a warm garden.

Fruit description

Tight clusters of bright red berry-like drupes about 6 mm, ripening in late summer. ⚠ Honestly: mild, faintly sweet and mealy — the 'pudding berry' — pleasant enough but bland fresh, and better cooked into jam or a pudding, which is the traditional use.

Propagation

Division of a rooted rhizome section in spring, taken with its litter and kept permanently moist — much the most reliable route. Seed needs warm then cold stratification and is slow and erratic.

Pollination

Insect-pollinated, with an explosive pollen-launch mechanism; self-compatible colonies

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.