What is "gaultheria"

Gaultheria \Gaul*the"ri*a\, n. [NL.] (Bot.) A genus of ericaceous shrubs with evergreen foliage, and, often, edible berries. It includes the American winter-green ( Gaultheria procumbens), and the larger-fruited salal of Northwestern America ( Gaultheria Shallon).

Wintergreen \Win"ter*green`\, n. (Bot.) A plant which keeps its leaves green through the winter.

Note: In England, the name wintergreen is applied to the species of Pyrola which in America are called English wintergreen, and shin leaf (see Shin leaf, under Shin.) In America, the name wintergreen is given to Gaultheria procumbens, a low evergreen aromatic plant with oval leaves clustered at the top of a short stem, and bearing small white flowers followed by red berries; -- called also checkerberry, and sometimes, though improperly, partridge berry.

Chickweed wintergreen, a low perennial primulaceous herb ( Trientalis Americana); -- also called star flower.

Flowering wintergreen, a low plant ( Polygala paucifolia) with leaves somewhat like those of the wintergreen ( Gaultheria), and bearing a few showy, rose-purple blossoms.

Spotted wintergreen, a low evergreen plant ( Chimaphila maculata) with ovate, white-spotted leaves.

n. (context botany English) Any of the genus ''Gaultheria'' of evergreen ericaceous shrubs.

Gaultheria is a genus of about 135 species of shrubs in the family Ericaceae. The name commemorates Jean-François Gauthier of Quebec, an honour bestowed by the Scandinavian Pehr Kalm in 1748 and taken up by Carl Linnaeus in his . These plants are native to Asia, Australasia and North and South America. In the past, the Southern Hemisphere species were often treated as the separate genus Pernettya, but no consistent reliable morphological or genetic differences support recognition of two genera, and they are now united in the single genus Gaultheria.