Chimaphila umbellata Seeds | Prince’s Pine
LATIN NAME: Chimaphila umbellata
COMMON NAME: Prince’s Pine
Plant Profile
Prince’s pine is the northern counterpart of the Japanese wintergreen, a low evergreen of dry pine woods and sandy heaths across the cooler parts of Europe, Asia and North America. It grows fifteen to twenty-five centimetres tall, with leathery, sharply toothed leaves in whorls of five to seven and, in midsummer, an umbel of four to eight nodding flowers that open cream and fade to pink. The flowers are followed by upright, dry capsules that stand through the winter. The plant spreads by underground runners into loose patches, and a good colony can be decades old. It is far more widespread than its Japanese relative, and it grows in drier, lighter woods, often under pines where the needle litter is deep and the soil is acid and sandy.
Science & Biotechnology
Chimaphila umbellata has a circumpolar distribution and a chromosome count that varies with latitude, with northern populations often polyploid, a pattern that suggests repeated expansion and isolation during the ice ages. Like other members of the wintergreen tribe it is mixotrophic, gaining carbon from ericoid mycorrhizal fungi as well as from photosynthesis, and isotope studies show that the fungal contribution rises in deep shade. The plant was one of the most widely used medicines of the North American woodland peoples, taken for urinary complaints and as a tonic, and it entered the American pharmacopoeia in the nineteenth century as a diuretic. Its chemistry includes arbutin, a hydroquinone glycoside that is still used in skin-lightening preparations, and ursolic acid.
Uses & Benefits
The plant is grown in woodland gardens and peat beds for its whorled leaves and its umbels of small, waxy flowers, and it makes a good ground cover under pines once established. It is difficult to establish from seed or division and should be bought as propagated stock. Its medicinal use has largely lapsed, though arbutin from related plants remains an ingredient in cosmetics, and the dried leaves were once smoked and brewed as a substitute for tea. In the wild it is an indicator of old, undisturbed pine woodland, and its presence is used in habitat surveys. It is not a plant for rich soil or for competition from grass, and it will not tolerate lime, digging or drought.
Growing from Seed
Seed is dust-fine and unreliable, so sow on sieved peat with sand, press into the surface, and keep in a closed container in shade at fifteen to eighteen degrees, watering only with rainwater. Germination depends on a compatible fungus and may not happen at all. Division of a rooted runner in early spring is the practical method: lift a piece with several leaves and a little of its own soil, and pot it in pure leaf mould. Keep it shaded and humid for a year. Plant out under pines or in a peat bed with acid, sandy soil, and mulch with pine needles. Never lime, fertilize or cultivate around it.
Our Take
A circumpolar woodland relic with waxy umbels and a taste for pine litter. Grow it from division, and leave the digging fork alone.
Related Reading
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