''Chimaphila umbellata'', the umbellate wintergreen, pipsissewa, or prince's pine, is a small perennial

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

found in dry woodlands, or sandy soils. It is native throughout the cool temperate

Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined by humans as being in the same celestial sphere, celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the Solar ...

Description

This plant grows up to 35 cm (12 in) tall, with one simple stem bearing

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has Leaf, foliage that remains green and functional throughout the year. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which lose their foliage completely during the winter or dry season. Consisting of many diffe ...

, shiny, toothed leaves in opposite pairs or

whorls A whorl ( or ) is an individual circle, oval, volution or equivalent in a whorled pattern, which consists of a spiral or multiple concentric objects (including circles, ovals and arcs). In nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral diagram ...

of 3-5 (and sometimes more) along the stem. Leaves have a slightly spiny

serrulate The following terms are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (that is, the leaf blade or 'lamina' is undivided) or compound (that is, the leaf blade is divided into two or more leaflets) ...

margin starting close to the base, and range from 1 ½ to 2 ½ inches long (or longer) with a typically oblanceolate shape. Flowers range from white to pink, produced in a small

umbel UMBEL (Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer) is a logically organized knowledge graph of 34,000 concepts and entity types that can be used in information science for relating information from disparate sources to one another. It was retired ...

of 4–8 together. The filaments have a roundish expansion at the base, bearing hairs along the margin only. In comparison, the closely related '' C. menziesii'' bears hairs on the ''back'' of the filament's expansion as well. Chimaphila umbellata fleur

Ecology

Although it has green leaves year-round, it receives a significant portion of its nutrition from fungi in the soil (that is, it is a partial myco-heterotroph, which is not surprising as related plants, such as ''

Pyrola ''Pyrola'' is a genus of evergreen herbaceous plants in the family Ericaceae. Under the old Cronquist system it was placed in its own family Pyrolaceae, but genetic research showed it belonged in the family Ericaceae. The species are commonly ...

'', are partial or full myco-heterotrophs).

Taxonomy

There are four

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

: *''Chimaphila umbellata'' subsp. ''umbellata'' – Europe, Asia *''Chimaphila umbellata'' subsp. ''acuta'' – southwestern North America *''Chimaphila umbellata'' subsp. ''cisatlantica'' – northeastern North America *''Chimaphila umbellata'' subsp. ''occidentalis'' – northwestern North America

Uses

Some

Plateau Indian Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau, also referred to by the phrase Indigenous peoples of the Plateau, and historically called the Plateau Indians (though comprising many groups) are Indigenous peoples of the Interior of British Columbi ...

tribes used a boil of prince's pine to treat

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

. The twentieth century Appalachian folk healer Clarence "Catfish" Gray, "Man of the Woods", credited pipsissewa with curing his own heart problems and included it in his 15 herb cure-all "bitters." It can reportedly be used as a flavoring in candy and soft drinks, particularly

root beer Root beer is a North American soft drink traditionally made using the root bark of the sassafras tree '' Sassafras albidum'' or the vine of '' Smilax ornata'' (known as sarsaparilla; also used to make a soft drink called sarsaparilla) as the ...

. The roots and leaves of ''Chimaphila umbellata'' can be boiled to create tea. Recent investigations show the anti-proliferative effect of ''Chimaphila umbellata'' in human breast cancer cells (MCF-7). Das, N., Samantaray, S., Ghosh, C., Kushwaha, K., Sircar, D. and Roy, P., 2021. ''Chimaphila umbellata'' extract exerts anti-proliferative effect on human breast cancer cells via RIP1K/RIP3K-mediated necroptosis. Phytomedicine Plus, p.100159.

Name

"Pipsissewa" is a

Cree The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...

name meaning "It-breaks-into-small-pieces".

References

External links

Pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata) • iNaturalistFlora Europaea: ''Chimaphila umbellata'' distributionlinnaeus.nrm.se: range map with the different subspecies of the ''Chimaphila umbellata''-complex Jepson Manual treatment – ''Chimaphila umbellata''USDA Plants Profile: Chimaphila umbellata
{{Taxonbar, from=Q158939 umbellata Flora of Northern America Flora of Europe Flora of temperate Asia Plants used in traditional Native American medicine Medicinal plants of Asia Medicinal plants of Europe Plants described in 1753 Rhizomatous plants Stoloniferous plants Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus