partridgeberry

Photo: Sesamehoneytart — CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Survives zone 3 through 9

Harvest calendar

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

⚠ Honestly: bland, nearly tasteless — a curiosity. Evergreen groundcover.

Hardiness

Zone 3–9

Habit

Groundcover

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Autumn–winter

Mature size

Creeping evergreen groundcover 5–10 cm tall, the mats spreading to 30–60 cm and more

Light

SHADE — a true shade groundcover; direct sun scorches the leaves

Soil pH

4.5–5.5 (acid woodland)

Environment

Woodland

Native range

Eastern North America, from Newfoundland and Ontario south to Florida and Texas — the floor of acid, shaded conifer and hardwood forest, usually in moss and deep leaf litter.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

2–3 yrs

Growth speed

Slow — a few centimetres of creeping stem a year

Spacing

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

Leaf shape

Opposite, small rounded evergreen leaves 1–2 cm, dark glossy green with a pale central vein, in neat pairs along a thread-like creeping stem.

Root system

Very shallow and wiry, rooting at the nodes as the stem creeps over moss and leaf litter. It has no reach at all, so it depends on a permanently moist, humus-rich, undisturbed surface — which is why partridgeberry transplants badly and is best moved as a mat with its litter intact.

Fruit description

A scarlet berry-like drupe about 8 mm, carrying two dimples at the tip — the scar of the two flowers that fused to make it, which is the plant's signature. It hangs on all winter and is edible but nearly tasteless: dry, seedy and faintly wintergreen at best.

Propagation

Division of a rooted mat, or cuttings of the creeping stem, both taken with as much of the surrounding litter as possible. Seed is slow and erratic.

Pollination

Distylous — needs both flower forms

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.