Misgendered gaultheria mucronata?

Hi,

I have a few female gaultheria mucronata shrubs, that produce berries. I had a male for them but it died over the winter and I ordered a new one online a few months ago.

The shrubs are all forming berries now, including the "male" one



As far as I know, sex changes are not a thing for gaultheria mucronata.

When I looked it up online, apparently some can be hermaphrodites, though the majority is not. I think it's more likely that the nursery accidentally sent me a female one - but then would that not mean that none of them would produce berries?

I am confused...

 

I've never kept this plant as we don't have acidic soil around here but your query brought out my curiosity and I had a quick look. It seems that some cultivars (bell's seedling is one) are actually hermaphrodites, so will berry as well as cross pollinate.

The other idea I had is that perhaps someone local has a male. I don't know how far it would need to be but some plants don't need that close connection to pollinate each other because insects travel quite far.

 

Good God! Do we have to ask plants which pronoun they want to use now?

 

I never did get my head around verbs and nouns, let alone pronouns, that was second year stuff.

 

I deliberately phrased it that way

For the record, I will love the plant equally, regardless of whether it is female, male or hermaphrodite.

(But I will be contacting the nursery to clarify and potentially send a new plant, to make sure I have berries every year).

 

Mystery solved. This is where I had bought it from.



@Thevictorian my soil is roughly neutral. I did incorporate some erricaceous compost while planting the ones which are in the ground, but after they got established I didn't repeat that and they are doing fine. The hermaphrodite one is in a pot. The berries are nice and last a very long time, but I wouldn't say that the rest of the plant is particularly appealing. It wouldn't be at the top of the list of plants that I would recommend.

 

Most gaultheria species are hermaphrodites, not all though.
I found several wild ones in new zealand, lovely plants with good diversity. The fruit is edible but a bit bland. I believe americans make a drink out of one of them.

 

One male to every five females? Sowing its wild oats.

 

I remember in a biology class at school being told that worms were hermaphrodite, and it was explained that meant they were both sexes. The teacher went on to say that they couldn't mate with themselves because if they could they would never move or do any good to the garden. Much tittering amongst a class of 12 year old boys.