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Creeping Snowberry

Chiogenes serpyllifolia. Heath Family.

Stem.--Slender; trailing and creeping. Leaves.--Evergreen; small; ovate; pointed. Flowers.--Small; white; solitary from the axils of the leaves. Calyx.--Four-parted; with four large bractlets beneath. Corolla.--Deeply four-parted. Stamens.--Eight. Pistil.--One. Fruit.--A pure white berry. One must look in May for the flower of this plant; but it is late in the summer when the beautiful little creeper especially challenges our admiration. Studded with snow-white berries, it nearly covers some decaying log which has fallen into a lonely Adirondack stream. Or else it thickly carpets the peat-bog where we are hunting cranberries, or brightens the moist mossy woods which earlier in the year were redolent with the breath of the twin-flower. Its aromatic flavor suggests the wintergreen and sweet birch.