Partridge-berry.Mitchella repens.Twin-berry.Fox-berry.Box-berry.Two-eye-berry.
Found in June, in dry woods, about the roots of pine trees.
This little running vine, 4 to 10 inches in length, is smooth and slender, leafy and occasionally branching. In color, a pale green or dark bronze-green.
The leaf is small, round-oval, widest at the base, thin but tough of texture, with a smooth surface that shines when new-grown; the margin is entire, and the midrib important. The young leaves are a bright cool green, lighter underneath; the older growths become dark and bluish green, the ribs and veins marking them with a light tracery. The leaves, on short stems, are arranged in pairs.
The corolla, in the shape of a slender tube spreading into 4 points, is covered thickly in the inside with cottony down, while the outside is smooth; the color is creamy-white, the outside delicately tinted creamy-pink. The little green calyx is 4-parted. The flowers bloom in pairs, their seed-boxes united and set on a single stem, placed terminally. The buds are pink.
Two kinds of flowers are borne on this plant, in one the 4 stamens protrude from the tube and the pistil does not show, in the other the 2-parted pistil is very noticeable and the stamens are retired. The delicious fragrance of the blossoms perfumes the whole woods where it grows. The small oval berry with its two openings is loved by children, because it is of a light coral-red color, and edible, though rather tasteless.