Partridgeberry

There are a few PEI plants that I’m always especially happy to find. One of those is the lovely Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens).

Photo: Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens) flower (main) and fruit (inset) on PEI.

Names can be confusing, and “Partridgeberry” is sometimes used to refer to Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), another low-growing forest plant with green leaves and red berries. Wintergreen is much more common on the Island, strongly scented, and nostalgic for those who’ve enjoyed it as trailside nibble or soothing tea. The Partridgeberry shown here is a totally different, unrelated plant.

This Partridgeberry is easily identified by its round or oval opposite leaves with a light vein down the middle. In July, it sends up pairs of tiny, beautiful, four-petalled flowers each covered in soft, white hairs. If you get close enough to see those delicate hairs, you’ll also experience the flowers’ sweet scent, and you might even notice that they are fused at the base. Each pair of Partridgeberry flowers shares a single ovary, and if both are pollinated, they produce a single, oblong berry (inset photo).

Partridgeberry is common on the mainland, but relatively rare here on the Island. The species name ‘repens’ means creeping or trailing, and while this evergreen perennial isn’t known from a huge number of sites, it can form dense patches where it does occur. It’s in the same family (Rubiaceae) as the Smooth Bedstraw I featured last week, but Partridgeberry is native and prefers shady forests, unlike its invasive, sun-loving relative.

This plant wasn’t known from PEI until David Erskine’s botanical work in the 1950s, when he found it at a single forested site in Portage, Prince County. That part of the Island is still the best area to find Partridgeberry, though it does grow in all three Counties.

I’ve found Partridgeberry in a number of forested sites across the Island, but they all have one thing in common: they have never been farmed. By 1900, less than 30% of PEI remained in forest – the rest had been cleared for agriculture or development. Since that time, more than 68,000 hectares (168,000 acres) has reverted to forest, but it’s very different from that which grew here before land clearing.

Rather than the late-successional, shade-loving mixed species of our pre-settlement forest, early-successional, sun-loving species were quick to establish on abandoned farmland. And the type of trees isn’t the only difference between forests on ploughed versus unploughed sites: their very foundation has changed.

Unploughed lands have the only true remaining forest soils left on PEI, including associated seed banks, fungi, micro-organisms, and invertebrates. As a result, they host higher native species diversity and are home to some provincially-rare plants and animals, including Partridgeberry. Importantly, these areas can’t be easily recreated once lost: it takes centuries for the ecology of unploughed sites to return, (and we can’t say for sure that it does).

Partridgeberries are edible, but not common enough to be foraged sustainably on the Island. If you’re lucky enough to find some, take a photo, upload it to iNaturalist, and enjoy the beauty of this part of PEI Untamed!