Wintergreen Essential Oil from Natural Health Crafters

Wintergreen - chewing gum, tea or aspirin.

Wintergreen Gaultheria procumbens is a perennial herb native to the eastern portion of North America. Formerly classified as Gaultheria repens and sometimes known locally as checkerberry, deerberry, Canada tea, spiceberry, teaberry, and mountain tea, this small shrublet, grows to 5 or 6 inches with white drooping flowers in June and July followed by bright red berries. An evergreen, the species has creeping, underground stems and erect branches with narrow leaves. Its white flowers bloom in late summer followed by scarlet-colored fruit Wintergreen is harvested in several Appalachian and northeastern areas of the United States. The flowers are hermaphrodite (has both male and female organs) and are pollinated by Insects.

Used by Native Americans to brew a tea. Mohawks, as well as Ojibwes, and others, knew the tea as medicinal as well as a healthful beverage. It contains methyl salycliates, the active painkilllers of asprin, useful for colds, headaches, and to bring down fevers. Such names as "teaberry" emphasize importance as a year-round beverage, and as a food flavoring for meat and fish cooked with fermented leaves. It is the source of "wintergreen oil," which was used as a flavoring in candies, chewing gum, and some medicine. The fruit is not at all insipid, it has a very strong spicy taste of germolene, just like being in a hospital waiting room. Best after a frost, the fruit hangs onto the plant until spring if it is not eaten by birds etc.

The fruits can also be used in pies, or made into jams etc. The fruit is up to 15mm in diameter. Young leaves - raw, make a pleasant wayside nibble if used when very young, though dry and powdery according to our taste buds. A very agreeable tea is made from the fresh leaves, a stronger tea can be made by first fermenting the bright red leaves.

Medicinal Use Checkerberry leaves were widely used by the native North American Indians in the treatment of aches and pains and to help breathing whilst hunting or carrying heavy loads. An essential oil (known as 'oil of wintergreen') obtained from the leaves contains methyl salicylate, which is closely related to aspirin and is an effective anti-inflammatory. This species was at one time a major source of methyl salicylate, though this is now mainly synthesized.

The leaves, and the oil, are analgesic, anti-inflammatory, aromatic, astringent, carminative, diuretic, emmenagogue, stimulant and tonic. An infusion of the leaves is used to relieve flatulence and colic. The plant, especially in the form of the essential oil, is most useful when applied externally in the treatment of acute cases of rheumatism, sciatica, myalgia, sprains, neuralgia and catarrh. The oil is sometimes used in the treatment of cellulitis, a bacterial infection that causes the skin to become inflamed.

The essential oil, extracted by distillation from fermented fresh material, is almost exclusively (96 to 99 percent) methyl salicylate. Fermentation allows the enzyme primeveroside to free the glycoside-bound methyl salicylate. The plant has little odor or flavor until the methyl salicylate is free. Oil content of fresh material is 0.5 to 0.8% by weight. Synthetic methyl salicylate and, to a lesser extent, an essential oil obtained from young twigs and bark of the sweet or black birch tree, Betula lenta of the Betulaceae family, have largely replaced the use of natural wintergreen for flavoring of products.

Wintergreen is reported to have mitogenic activity and is used in several insecticidal and insect repellent preparations