Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A trailing plant. Mitchella repens.
- noun The wintergreen, Gaultheria procumbens.
Etymologies
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Examples
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The _Mitchella_, the little partridge-berry, is here in bloom, and has been since the year came in.
Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 of Popular Literature and Science Various
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They are still coveting the stores of precious stones at the jewelers, and do not care for my ruby buds, and red dogwood, and scarlet winter berries, and ground pine, and partridge-berry leaves.
Sanders' Union Fourth Reader Charles W. Sanders
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The common partridge-berry, with its brilliant scarlet fruit and dark green leaves, will also grow finely in such situations, and have a beautiful effect.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 Various
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At the foot of a rough, scraggy yellow birch, on a bank of club-moss, so richly inlaid with partridge-berry and curious shining leaves, -- with here and there in the bordering a spire of the false wintergreen
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 Various
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And after I had ended, I sealed the sheet with balsam, pricking the globule from the tree behind me, and setting over it a leaf of partridge-berry.
The Hidden Children 1899
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Quite a different species, belonging to another family, bears the true partridge-berry, albeit the wintergreen shares with it a number of popular names.
Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Neltje Blanchan 1891
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We gathered, this afternoon, some flowers of the partridge-berry and squaw-vine, the only spring blossoms still found in the woods.
Rural Hours 1887
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Dunham's open for partridge-berry vines, and had not returned.
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After the linnæa and the arbutus, the prettiest sweet-scented flowering vine our woods hold is the common mitchella vine, called squaw-berry and partridge-berry.
The Writings of John Burroughs — Volume 05: Pepacton John Burroughs 1879
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Mitchella vine, or squaw-berry, or partridge-berry.
The Writings of John Burroughs — Volume 05: Pepacton John Burroughs 1879
ruzuzu commented on the word partridge-berry
"A trailing plant. Mitchella repens. It is a smooth herb, with round-ovate evergreen leaves, the paired flowers white, tinged with purple, bearded within, and fragrant. It is common throughout the woods of eastern North America, reaching to Mexico. Its little twin flowers of early summer, though pretty, are less noticed than its scarlet fruit, which from autumn to spring forms a very pleasing combination with the deep-green leaves. The berry is edible, but insipid. The plant has medical uses like pipsissewa. It is aromatic and astringent, and yields an oil which contains 90 per cent. of methyl salicylate and is largely used in rheumatism. Also checkerberry, deerberry, and hive-vine."
--Century Dictionary
September 2, 2010
bilby commented on the word partridge-berry
See partridgeberry.
September 2, 2010