USEFUL WILD PLANTS 



Walk to the Gulf," quoting for it a local Georgia 

 name, "Apricot vine," having a superb flower "and 

 the most delicious fruit I have ever eaten. ' ' 



The Heath family, which gives us the huckleberry, 

 blueberry and cranberry (too well known to be 

 treated here), as well as the manzanita already de- 

 scribed, has two or three other members growing 

 wild and bearing berries whose edibility is touched 

 with a special grace of spiciness. One of these is 

 the familiar Teaberry, Checkerberry or Wintergreen 

 {Gaultheria procumhens, L.), an aromatic, creeping, 

 evergreen vine usually of coniferous woods, from 

 subarctic America southward through the eastern 

 United States to Georgia. The crimson-coated ber- 

 ries, about the size of peas, are pleasant morsels and 

 make a welcome feature in a small way in the 

 autumnal displays of fruit venders in Eastern cities. 

 A Pacific Coast species of Gaultheria with black- 

 purple berries {G. Shallon, Pursh) has become com- 

 monly known by the name of Salal, a corrupted form 

 of its Indian designation. It is a small shrub, one to 

 three feet high, with sticky, hairy stems, frequent 

 in the redwood forests of Northern California, and 

 thence northward in shady woods as far as British 

 Columbia. Lewis and Clarke's journal contains 

 several references to the Oregon Indians' fondness 



102 



