290 ERICACEAE. 
GAULTHERIA. Wintergreen. 
(Family Ericaceae). 
Aromatic small shrubs, either 
bushy or with short erect shoots 
that are leafy toward the top: 
evergreen. Twigs moderate, zig- 
zag and 3-sided in the large type, 
slender and rounded in the 
smaller: pith relatively large, 
honey-combed or finally spongy. 
Buds solitary, sessile, ovuvid, with 
about 5 ciliate scales. Leaf-scars 
alternate, minute and linear in 
the smaller type, but half-round or 
shield-shaped in the larger and 
then with a large bundle-trace: 
stipule-scars lacking. Leaves 
simple, short-stalked, minutely 
somewhat serrate. 
Wintergreen “berries”, which re- 
ally are soft-walled capsules en- 
closed by a fleshy calyx, are some- 
times brought into northern cities 
by the Indians. 
Wintergreen and sweet birch are so similarly flavored as 
to give rise to the impression that oil of wintergreen and oil 
of birch contain identical aromatic substances. The princi- 
pal constituent in each is said to be methyl salicylate, but 
the characteristic flavor is due to small quantities of an ester. 
it. 
2. 
3. 
Bushy: twigs sparsely hairy or papillate: buds large. 2. 
With nearly simple short shoots from prostrate stems. 3. 
Upright: leaves ovate, round-based. (1). G. Shallon. 
Spreading: leaves elliptical to obovate. G. Veitchiana. 
Loosely hairy: leaves ovate, round-based. G. Myrsinites. 
Glabrate: leaves elliptical to obovate. (2). G. procumbens. 
