Drimys winteri

Outstanding evergreen shrub to 20' distinguished by mahogany bark and attractive foliage. Small clusters of jasmine scented, creamy white flowers in winter to spring. Multi-stemmed form; part shade, well drained soils.

Winter’s Bark, also known as Canelo in its native South America, is a unique, evergreen large shrub or small tree closely related to Tasmanian Mountain Pepper. Native to the cool temperate forests of southern Chile and Argentina, this shrub is slowly becoming a popular ornamental in Europe and North America. Similar to its Australian cousin, the leaves and fruit of Winter’s Bark contain essential oils that give them a unique pepper like flavor that can be used as an herb or a spice. More famously, the bark of this plant was used by Captain James Cook and his crew to prevent and treat scurvy during their voyages in the South Pacific. This variety of Winter’s Bark can grow to reach 25 feet tall and makes an attractive, broad-leafed evergreen. This is a great plant option for those looking for a unique, cold hardy spice plant. Winter’s Bark is considered cold hardy to USDA zone 6b or to -5 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sometimes called South America's madrone (Arbutus menziesii) this small, stately, evergreen tree has glossy, lightly fragrant, lanceolate leaves, up to 7 in" long, of medium green on top with very blue undersides - a lovely contrast. Native to rainforests in Argentina and Chile and reaching 65' tall in the wide, they remaining closer to 20' in the garden often as multi-trunked specimens with smooth, pungently aromatic bark, and, in late winter to early spring, clusters of sweet, white flowers. These, a selection from Vilches, Chile by plantsman Michael Remmick, need summer water in full sun to part shade. Frost hardy in USDA zone 8.

... very powerful against the scurvy(wrote Capt.Winter in 1578) of the bark of this handsome (to 50') shrub-tree; loose clusters of fragrant, ivory white flowers decorate its large leathery (silvery beneath) leaves in spring. S-PSh/M