Prickly heath (Gaultheria mucronata)

Family: Ericaceae | Edibility: Choice Edible (4/5)

Gaultheria mucronata is an evergreen Shrub growing to 1.5 m (5ft) by 1.2 m (4ft in). See above for USDA hardiness. It is hardy to UK zone 6. It is in leaf all year, in flower from May to June, and the seeds ripen from October to December. The species is dioecious (individual flowers are either male or female, but only one sex is to be found on any one plant so both male and female plants must be grown if seed is required).

Edible Parts & Harvest Seasons

Edible Parts: Fruit, Berries

Harvest Seasons: Early Summer, Fall, Late Summer, Winter

Flavor & Culinary Uses

pleasant slightly sweet flavour and makes a very good dessert fruit. — Fruit - raw or cooked.; The lilac-coloured fruit does not look tremendously edible, and the texture is somewhat like polystyrene - but the fruit of some forms is juicy, almost melts in the mouth, has a very pleasant slightly sweet flavour and makes a very good dessert fruit.; The fruit is up to 12mm in diameter.

Habitat & North American Range

Open wet Nothfagus and Drimys forest, dominant or co-dominant with Chiliotrichum in shrub communities fringing forests above high water mark and in transition to swamps and bogs from sea level to 700m. (Zone 5, Zone 6, Zone 7, Zone 8, Zone 9)