False Wintergreens, Gaultheria

The small, sweet berries of this species are delicious and may be eaten fresh, served with cream. and sugar or cooked in sauces. Their flavour improves after first frost, so they are at their best in fall or winter (even under the snow if you are really persistent.) The  dry, crushed, berries and leaves are also used to make strong aromatic tea.

All false-wintergreens contain methyl salicylate (similar to the aspirin which is derived from willow. Like aspirin, it is an effective pain killer).

WARNING: OIL OF WINTERGREEN CONTAINS METHYL SALICYLIC, A DRUG THAT HAS CAUSED ACCIDENTAL POISONINGS. I SHOULD NEVER BE TAKEN INTERNALLY, EXCEPT IN VERY SMALL AMOUNTS Avoid applying the oil, or any creams, whn you are hot, because dangerous amounts could still be absorbed through the open pores of your skin. Although usually less severe, like poison ivy and oak, it is known to cause skin reactions. People who are allergic to aspirin should not use any of false-wintergreens or relatives there of.

 It provides fragrance to various products such as toothpaste, chewing gum and candy. It is a flavouring agent (at no more than 0.04 percent), and an ingredient in DEEP – HEAT sport creams.  The oil is a source of triboluminescence, a phenomenon in which a substance produces light when rubbed, scratched, or crushed. The oil, when missed with sugar, and dried, builds up an electrical charge that releases electrical sparks when ground, producing the (once, long before television, a great attraction to kids)the Wint-O-Green Lifesavers optical phenomenon. To observe this: look in a mirror, in a dark room, and chew the candy, with your mouth open.

Salal,Gaultheria shallon, (shown above) can be upright or ground crawling. Salal can also be sparse or form a dense barrier almost impossible to penetrate. The names salal and shallon are both presumed to be of North American origin: the former name is presumed to be from Chinook jargon sallal, and the latter is presumed to be from another native word the approximate pronunciation of which was recorded by Lewis and Clark as "shelwel, shellwell" but, of course, not only did the indigenous North American natives existing at that time, not use our alphabet; even the way we utter the letter sounds of said alphabet have changed, drastically; so that pronunciation is very, very, approximate, indeed. The genus Gaultheria was named by Pehr Kalm for his guide in Canada, fellow botanist Jean-François Gaultier.

Salal berries were once one of the most important crops to many of the Aboriginal or Indigenous inhabitants of British Columbia. They were used in soups, stews, and made into fruit leather. These sweet berries are almost unknown in other parts of North America. They have a strong, unique and pleasing flavour. Jellied salal tastes wonderful on toast, crepes, and pancakes or in sauces for meats, fowl and game.

FASCINATING FACTS:

Salal spreads by suckering layer upon layer and is probably the most dominant shrub in the British Columbia coastal forest area.

- the strong, flexible branches and stems of the Salal plant are well designed to withstand the wet heavy snows; they merely bend instead of breaking

- Salal berries were a major food source for BC's native peoples.

Alpine False –wintergreen, Gaultheria humifusia has long glossy leaves rounded to blunt at tips with pink or green-white, 5 lobed flowers and scarlet pulpy berries. These berries are drier and not as palatable as other Gaultheria species. Grows in moist to wet sub-alpine meadows in southern British Columbia Also called: alpine wintergreen, and creeping wintergreen.

Hairy False-wintergreen, Gaultaheria hispidula, has tiny, stiff, flat lying, brown hairs on its stems and lower leaf surfaces. Leafs are very small and the flowers are very tiny, 4 lobed. The berries of this false evergreen are white, small, and on a short stock. They persist through fall and winter. Grows in cold, wet bogs and coniferous forests in mountain and sub-alpine zones. Associated with acid soils and often grows in mosses under conifers, or on rotting logs, along the edges of swamps, or bogs. Also called creeping SNOW BERRY

Slender False-wintergreen , Gaulheria ovatifolia, is very similar to alpine false wintergreen except that it has red hairy (rather than hairless)calyxes ant pointed long leaves. Grows in moist to wet British Columbia forests, heaths and bogs in mountain and sub-alpine Southern sites.

© Al (Alex,Alexander) D. Girvan. All rights reserved.