The round-leaved wintergreen is a perennial evergreen herbaceous plant of the Pyrolaceae family. It is often called ‘grushinka’, ‘grushka’, ‘butushnitsa’, and also – ‘wild incense’ or ‘ladanitsa’ for its saturated scent.
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Wintergreen
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The writer Victor Astafyev in the book Czar Fish called the round-leaved wintergreen a ‘cardiac herb’:
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‘Near the spring darkened by thickets, in the shade and chill, in the last stage of flowering bloomed globeflowers, already sloughed everywhere, but anomalous peonies were in their prime, lesser butterfly-orchids, lady’s-slipper orchids, the wintergreen — cardiac herb — bloomed everywhere, and on the ravines, where the snow had laid for a long time, tired anemones and corydalises’.
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The plant is found in Europe, Asia and even in the arctic regions of Greenland. In Russia, the round-leaved wintergreen can be seen most often in the Vologda Oblast, in the Urals, in Siberia and the Far Eastern regions. In total, there are about 40 species of wintergreen. The wintergreen grows in pine, oak and spruce forests, as well as on meadows and glades. It often hides among blueberries and lingonberries.
The wintergreen has a long, branched rhizome. From its nodes grow away above-ground stems, up to 30 centimetres in height. The stem ends with an inflorescence at the top. In June and early July, the wintergreen begins to bloom. Its flowers are usually of white or pink shades. They are pollinated by various insects: bumblebees, flies and beetles. In late August ripen the fruits— globoid, slightly flattened capsules.
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The wintergreen exudes a pleasant scent that resembles the smell of lily-of-the-valley, which is why the plant is also called “fake lily-of-the-valley”. Back in 1922, the zoologist Nikolay Kholodkovsky wrote a poem about this scent:
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“Tall, sweet-scented,
The round-leaved wintergreen,
In remote woodlands blooms;
The concolorous wintergreen,
Barely perceptible in the grass,
Forth sends its fine perfume”.
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The first to notice the medicinal properties of the wintergreen were the Indians of North America: they drank drinks made from its leaves. The latter were also used to make aromatic tea and wine, while in China they were applied as a vegetable antibiotic. And today its leaves are often used in traditional medicine. They are collected during flowering — in May and during the whole summer. The wintergreen essential oils act as an antiseptic, hemostatic and anti-inflammatory agent. The plant is included as a compound of toothpastes and rinses.
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Today, the round-leaf wintergreen is a rare plant. It is listed in the Russia Red Data Book. Due to swam drainage, reduction of forest areas, plants being trampled down, some species of the wintergreen are disappearing altogether.
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Kuzebai Gerd National Museum of the Republic of Udmurtia
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Wintergreen
Dimensions
40x30 cm
Technique
Herbarisation
Collection
Exhibition
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