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The Checkerberry

The names: Checkerberry, Boxberry, Partridge Berry, or Wintergreen, are familiarly applied to two different berries, one the Gaultheria, of the Heath Family, the other the Mitchella repens, or Winter Clover, of the Madder Family. It is the former from which is distilled the oil of wintergreen and whose berries are so enticingly gay and spicy. The flowers of the Mitchella are pretty and scented but the berries, though edible and keeping all through the winter, become dry and tasteless. They possess medicinal virtues in being tonic and soothing and have been used in dropsy and other troubles.