Spotted Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata)
By Wendy Diaz EMGV
In North Carolina, one of the advantages of my removal of invasive ground cover mechanically rather than chemically and changing my gardening habits – such as no longer mulching with three inches of pine straw – is that remarkable tiny native plants start to appear beneath my beech tree (Fagus sylvatica) like the Spotted Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) without any more intervention from me. (I wrote about another diminutive native plant beneath my beech tree, the Cranefly Orchid (Tipularia discolor), in the blog post of July 30, 2020 ).
I feel fortunate that I have a few plants of this smallest of evergreen shrubs peeking above the dead leaves and pine needles in my woodland garden; although it is fairly common in North Carolina, it is rare, if not endangered, in its northern range near my home town in Ontario and also in Maine. It has become so rare in its most northern range of Canada that there is a recovery program in Ontario,.
Spotted Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) is a native, evergreen rhizomatous wildflower or dwarf shrub found on the shaded forest floor. It only reaches a height of 3 to 5 inches tall which makes it a good ground cover if you can get it to spread; it is slow growing. The habit form of the Spotted Wintergreen is classified as a sub-shrub and is considered in some literature as a small broadleaf evergreen shrub. The woody plant is easily found in the forests of the Piedmont due to the conspicuous white mid-rib of the dark blueish-green leaves which contrast with the light brown of the surrounding leaf litter. The genus name is a combination of the Greek word for winter (cheima) and to love (philein). Other common names include Striped Wintergreen, Striped Prince’s Pine, Rheumatism Root and Spotted pipsissewa. Pipsissewa comes from the Cree Indian word pipsisikweu which means ‘break into small pieces’ because mistakenly, they believed that a substance in its leaves would ‘break-up’ kidney stones. Native Americans also used to make tea from the leaves to treat rheumatism and stomach maladies. The foliage is avoided by deer. It has a wide range in Eastern North America from Quebec to Florida and as far south as Central America. It prefers medium to dry forest floors with medium shade and acidic soils. More precisely, it requires dappled sunlight (shade through the canopy all day) or deep shade (less than 2 hours to no direct sunlight) and sandy soils on the dry side with good drainage. It has a stoloniferous root system and spreads by underground stems or rhizomes. The plant does not do well if its roots are disturbed. It reproduces both vegetatively and by seed reproduction following light wildfires.
The evergreen leaves are a deep blue-green color with a white stripe along the central vein of the leaf with a waxy or leathery appearance. As the larger leaves widen, the white stripe spreads laterally to give a mottled appearance giving it its most distinguishing characteristic. Dentate leaf margins have shallow widely-spaced teeth. The narrow ovate-shaped leaves have an opposite and whorled arrangement and are about 1 to 3 inches in length and less than an inch in width. The leaves are attached to a semi-woody stout reddish-brown stem.
In late May to early June in the Piedmont of North Carolina, small fragrant, pretty white flowers appear from spherical white buds. The flowers are bell shape and open downward or hang (nodding) from the top of long reddish-brown stalk that grows up from the leaf whorl. Each stalk is topped by 2 to 5 curving stems from which clusters of 2 to 5 flowers emerge; looking much like an old fashioned lamp post.
Top Photo: Spotted Wintergreen buds and stalk look like tiny lamposts. Middle Photo: Partially opened blossom, fully opened blossom and missing blossom on one reddish stalk emerging from the whorl of waxy bluish-green leaves. Bottom Photo: Closeup of blossoms and green pistil (early seed pod). Photo taken by Wendy Diaz at Raven Rock State Park on June 7 2015.
Each flower of ½ to ¾ inch diameter has 5 waxy white petals that have small scattered brown spots, 5 light green sepals and ten yellowish or tan colored stamens and a green pistil. After pollination the flower turns upward so that the resultant small (less than an inch in length and 1/3 inch wide) seed capsule that forms is erect and eventually matures to a dark brown color. The dried capsule splits and releases tiny seeds
I was out of town this year when a few buds blossomed on the plants beneath the beech tree. I suspect there wasn’t a bigger show this year than there was in 2021 because we had a very wet winter and spring and they prefer drier soils or I am disturbing their sensitive roots when I often walk over to their colony to admire them.