For Flora and Fauna Friday this week we have a low growing doubled-up wildflower, Partridge-Berry (Mitchella repens).
Partridge-Berry is a common wildflower in the woods of the eastern US. It grows in shaded forest understories. The plant is a ground cover that spreads clonally through creeping, prostrate stems. Partridge-Berry is perennial and evergreen. It’s simple, opposite leaves are small and deep blue-green. The interesting thing about Partridge-berry is its flowers and fruits. The flowers are small, white, trumpet-shaped, and sport four to five petals, each with a fuzzy surface. What’s unique about them is that they’re always borne in pairs. A twin inflorescence joined at the hip. Even more interesting is the use of an intriguing reproductive strategy in the species. Every Partridge-Berry plant has one of two flower types and every flower across the whole clonal colony will be that one type. The species possesses heteromorphic self-incompatibility and a Partridge-Berry plant will either be herkogamic or reverse-herkogamic. In lay-speak that means the plant will either have flowers with long pollen-bearing stamens and short pistils or conversely short stamens and long pistils. Plants of one flower-type can’t pollinate the same flower-type due to the positioning of the flower parts. The two flower-types interact with different body parts on the same pollinating insect. For example, a flower with short stamens will only deposit pollen on the proboscis of a butterfly. That proboscis will never touch the long pistil of that same flower-type. However, that proboscis can brush against and cross-pollinate the flowers of another plant with short pistils. It’s a unique strategy that forces plants to cross-pollinate with genetically different neighbors and promotes genetic diversity. Returning to the simple stuff, this two-flowered bloom results in an interesting fruit. As the ovaries of the twin flowers mature, they merge together to create a compound fruit with two flower scars. This bright red double-berry is an important food source to birds and small mammals. They’re also edible to humans. However, they are well and truly tasteless as the fruits are basically starch and water. Only the faintest vestiges of flavor are present.
