It’s hard to believe any plant could be alive under this heavy ice and snow. Rest assured, there’s one under the storms having a good time.
We were on a winter camping trip, called a Polar Bear in Boy Scout parlance. We were digging around the snow for firewood when we spotted a wintergreen happily spreading under a drift. You could not miss it. Its berries were bright red and its leaves a bright, waxy green.
Our plant field manual identified it. I picked a leaf and rubbed it. Confirmation: Definitely wintergreen, the aroma of mint candy and mouthwash.
Wintergreen is most common in the Northwest. Migrating birds have spread examples eastward. It is now found coast-to-coast in northern states. Its oil, steam-distilled from its leaves, is a small industry where it is plentiful.
In warm weather, the plant is unexceptional. It despises hot, dry spells, often withering to nothingness. Then comes winter and the snow. While everything else is asleep, it is busy growing, producing berries and spreading into a low-lying shrub. Hungry, foraging animals seek it and its berries.
Wintergreen likes the dark and damp, so you’ll find it in our heaviest forests. Your best shot is to look on the creek banks where the topsoil has washed away. It thrives in terrible soil, liking clay-based, high-acid ones the best.
Its ability to grow in cold weather, packed in ice and snow, captures the imagination of plant scientists. This must be genetic. Imagine if you could transfer that quality to, say, string beans. You could grow food all year or in climates with too-short growing seasons.
Wintergreen resists human tampering. Clones have been made available commercially, but you often must plant quite a few before a patch takes hold. The wild ones are better off where they are. Transplanting them almost always fails. Their necessary habitat rarely will be found in our gardens.
So, if you’re out hiking or cross-country skiing these days and see a suspicious, small mound of snow, it might be wintergreen. Take a look, maybe steal an aromatic leaf, but be sure to replace the snow around it. It’s nice knowing at least something has the grit to grow out there right now.
author: Jim Hillibish