Wintergreen Health Article

Description

Though several different plants are called by this name, true wintergreen is Gaultheria procumbens, a lowgrowing species of shrub common in sandy coastal regions and woodlands of eastern North America from Georgia to New Foundland. It is a member of the heath, or Ericaceae, family. Other names by which wintergreen is known include aromatic wintergreen, boxberry, Canada tea, checkerberry, deerberry, ground berry, mountain tea, partidgeberry, spice berry, teaberry, and wax cluster.

Wintergreen plants have creeping underground stems from which small reddish stalks grow, normally less than 6 in (15 cm) high. Wintergreen leaves are spoon-shaped and less than 0.5 in (1 cm) in length. They are bright green, shiny, and have a leathery appearance. They are attached in tufts near the tip of a rigid, slender stalk. In June or July, wintergreen plants produce tiny wax-like, urn-shaped flowers, which are either white or pink in color. These unusual flowers are often difficult to find because the plant's leaves and other ground covers on the forest floor hide them so well. The fruit of the wintergreen, a startlingly brilliant red berry, appears in late autumn through the winter, and is much more visible than the wintergreen flower. Wintergreen is an evergreen plant, and even beneath deep snow it retains its shiny green leaves and scarlet berries.

Wintergreen leaves and berries are edible. In their natural state they have no particularly noticeable odor. The leaves have a tart, spicy, astringent taste, while the berries are sweet, with a unique, pleasant taste, which is often used in flavorings. Wintergreen leaves were formerly carried in the United States Pharmacopoeia, but now only the oil distilled from them is listed. But in many countries the whole plant is still used. When wintergreen leaves are distilled, they impart an oil, which is made up of 99% methyl salicylate, the chemical compound upon which all aspirin products are based. Before being distilled, wintergreen leaves have to be steeped in water for nearly a day before the oil will develop through fermentation. It is only after this fermentation and the chemical reaction of water and one component, gaultherin, that wintergreen emits its characteristic, pleasant aroma. Chemists have learned how to synthetically produce an oil with many of the same properties and a very similar product, also called oil of wintergreen, is extracted from the sweet birch tree, Betula lenta.

The name wintergreen is also sometimes applied to two other members of the genus Gaultheria, as well as three other unrelated plants:

• Gaultheria hispidula is also called wintergreen. It is supposed to remove the predisposition to cancer from the body.
• Gaultheria shallon, sallol, is found in northwest America. Its berries are edible and quite tasty.
• Pytola rotundiflora is also known as false wintergreen or British wintergreen. It was formerly used as a vulnerary.
• Chimophila umbellata and Maculata are both called by a variety of names: bitter wintergreen, rheumatism weed, spotted wintergreen, or pipsissewa. North American natives used these two herbs for the treatment of indigestion, rheumatism, scrofula, and as a diuretic.
• Trientalis europaea, or chickweed wintergreen, is native to England and was used in the past externally in an ointment used in healing wounds, and internally as a tea to treat blood-poisoning and eczema.