For Love of Partridgeberry
Whenever I am in the forest lowlands during the spring, summer, or fall, I seek out partridgeberry, one of my favorite Earth-loving creepers. Each leaf is oval to round, painted a deep forest green,
and if the vine is moved gently, thread-like rootlets can be seen running along the surface of moist ground barely tapping into the mycelial network below.

In the late spring I always get down on my knees to smell the flowers (no small feat); they are so fragrant that it is no wonder that the bumblebees seek them out.

I love this plant marveling over the two fragrant trumpet-like blossoms, the tiny hard green fruits that appear in mid-summer. In the fall, I continue to make trip after trip into the forest(s) to watch the berries mature – their scarlet coats are stunning.

My little brother and I used to seek out these plants because we loved those red berries; we ate a few every now and then. We also gathered some plants to keep in our winter terrarium because these ground-loving creepers grew everywhere around the lowland part of the forest, swamp, and brook. The vines thrived, and the startling crimson berries lasted all winter long, an adaption that
still leaves me with questions. Most berries make such a brief appearance. Are the partridgeberry fruits patiently waiting for just the right bird or animal to come along to collect the eight seeds inside each berry?

As a young adult I hung some berried strands in a glass ball on my live indoor evergreen tree during the winter months, but I was always careful to return the partridgeberry to its original forest home in the spring…

A year ago, my friend Al gave me a terrarium with special lights and this time I decided that I would try to use this space not only as a miniature indoor forest fragment but as an enclosed space to experiment in (whatever goes in there never comes out becoming part of the ecology of this small space). I guess that it’s no surprise that I added a few strands of partridgeberry to the mix.

I do not recommend taking this plant from the forest like I did because here I know partridgeberry is protected, and I have a plethora of these vines snaking around tree trunks next to the brook just below the house.

Unfortunately, like almost every woodland plant in unprotected places, partridgeberry is not as common as it once was for the usual reasons – the logging machine is its worst enemy, followed by popular ‘selective logging’ practices which also expose the plants to lethal amounts of sun and a drying substrate. Partridgeberry needs shade and moisture to survive. The plant will not even tolerate heavy foot traffic.

I always wondered how long the delicate tubular flowers lasted and last May I discovered one pair of blossoms in my terrarium. My nose was in heaven every time I opened the door. Within two days, the flowers withered away, much to the child’s disappointment! It’s important to note that there were no bumblebees in ‘Mary’s Garden’ to pollinate those sweet trumpets. I still don’t know if the twin flowers last longer than two days in the forest waiting for bumblebees, especially if the weather is inclement. What I have noticed is that bumblebees can be seen foraging on days when other pollinators appear to be absent. It seems to me that from an evolutionary standpoint, the flowers would last until pollination occurred.

Two years ago, I sat down on a granite stone near the river, determined to stay there until something pollinated the tiny twin trumpets that surrounded me. I wondered if there were other pollinators
besides bumblebees. It wasn’t long before one of my fuzzy Bombus friends appeared, followed by others. It was only about 9 a.m., but shafts of sunlight were streaming down, lighting up the forest floor and highlighting the palest pink of some of the trumpets that shone their four-petaled faces skyward but lived so close to the ground that I thought visiting bumblebees might end up grounded, too.

To my surprise, each robust low-flying bee hovered delicately over pairs of flowers, sucked nectar, and rose into the emerald understory without incident. I had deliberately picked an area that was
full of twin blossoms to maximize the possibility that I might meet other pollinators, but I didn’t. Listening to the river’s siren song, I moved into that place where time ceases to be, so I have no idea how long I stayed but when I stood up, I was stiff. Old bones, I guess.

Partridgeberry is a member of the Madder family (Rubiaceae), so named because of its trailing, creeping habit. It used to be found throughout eastern North America from Newfoundland to Ontario, Minnesota, and south to Texas and Florida. It is a native perennial – a trailing vine with slender stems that root at nodes that seek the forest floor. I know places in my favorite forests where these vines spread into a rich tangle of deep green mats. The leaves have a pearled midrib.

Here in western Maine, we see the floral display in early June. The twin flowers (single calyx) have four brilliant white petals that unite into a funnel-shaped tube that is also fringed with hairs. There are two forms that occur in each pair of flowers. In the first, the pistil is long and the stamens are short. The other has a short pistil and long stamens. This adaptation prevents each flower from fertilizing itself. Both flowers must be pollinated to produce a single berry, and each is the result of the fusion of each ovary of the pollinated pair. If you peer closely at the fruit, you will notice that it has two red spots on its surface. Each berry contains eight seeds and lasts for about a year in the wild. In my terrarium, one berry from last fall has finally separated from its vine and I am very curious to see what happens next.

Partridgeberry prefers rich moist organic soils in either deciduous or coniferous forests where some dappled morning or late afternoon sunlight reaches the forest floor. Although the plant also grows in deep shade, this naturalist notes a scarcity of flowers and berries on vines that get no sun. Birds eat the fruits and distribute the seeds. The American robin, eastern bluebird gray catbird hermit thrush, wood thrush, veery, grouse, and wild turkeys are among the birds that feast on the berries. Some mammals also eat the berries. Fox and coyotes, racoons, deer, red squirrels, and mice feed upon them too.

According to the literature, the seeds are extremely difficult to grow and require cold stratification to germinate the following spring or the one thereafter (of course). My guess is that they have to move through the digestive tract of a bird or animal to become viable. When snow lies heavy in the woodlands, I think of the partridgeberry vines that are sleeping soundly under nature’s still white blanket, some red berries still intact. Although I have these vines in my terrarium, I am always anxious to visit them again in the wild.

Even though it’s December I am already looking forward to returning to partridgeberry – land to count the fruits that remain (by spring the berries are smaller and a darker shade of red). Why
are some berries always left behind? This remains a question I have yet to answer.

Postscript: If you want to grow partridgeberry, some nurseries propagate this delightful little creeper, so it is possible to have your own partridgeberries without having to forage for some in the wild.

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