''Aristotelia chilensis'', known as maqui or Chilean wineberry, is a tree species in the

Elaeocarpaceae Elaeaocarpaceae is a family of flowering plants. The family contains approximately 615 species of trees and shrubs in 12 genera."Elaeocarpaceae" In: Klaus Kubitzki (ed.). ''The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants'' vol. VI. Springer-Verlag: Be ...

family native to South America in the

Valdivian temperate rainforest The Valdivian temperate forests (NT0404) is an ecoregion on the west coast of southern South America, in Chile and Argentina. It is part of the Neotropical realm. The forests are named after the city of Valdivia. The Valdivian temperate rainforest ...

s of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

and adjacent regions of southern

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. Limited numbers of these trees are cultivated in gardens for their small fruits. Wild-harvested fruits are commercially marketed.

Description

Tree

''Aristotelia chilensis'' is a small

dioecious Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which ...

tree that can reach in height. Its divided trunk has a smooth bark. Its branches are abundant, thin and flexible. Its leaves are simple, opposite, hanging, oval-

lanceolate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular o ...

, naked and

coriaceous This glossary of botanical terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to botany and plants in general. Terms of plant morphology are included here as well as at the more specific Glossary of plant morphology and Glossary o ...

, with serrated edges. The

leaf venation A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, ste ...

is highly visible, and the leaf stalk is a strong red color. In the beginning of spring, the tree sheds the old leaf cohort, which is used as a carbohydrate source to form the new leaves and flowers. Maqui chileno berry

Flowers and berries

When ''A. chilensis'' flowers at the end of spring, the white flowers are

unisexual Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...

and small, eventually yielding a small edible

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

. The small purple-black

berries A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit, although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples are strawberries, raspb ...

that form are approximately in diameter and contain 4 to 8 angled seeds. A seven-year-old tree can produce up to of berries per year. With fruit that tastes similar to

blackberries The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy of ...

, the species is known as the ''Chilean wineberry'', and locally in Spanish as ''maqui'' or ''maque''.

Taxonomy

The maqui was first scientifically described by

Juan Ignacio Molina Fr. Juan Ignacio Molina (; (June 24, 1740 – September 12, 1829) was a Chilean Jesuit priest, naturalist, historian, translator, geographer, botanist, ornithologist, and linguist. He is usually referred to as Abate Molina (a form of Abbot Moli ...

in 1782, who named it ''Cornus chilensis''. In 1914,

Stephen Conrad Stuntz Stephen Conrad Stuntz (1875–1918) was an American botanist and fiction author. Life Graduating with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin in 1899, Stuntz worked as an assistant at the university library and herbarium until 1 ...

assigned it to the genus ''Aristotelia'' that had been erected by

Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle (; 15 June 1746 – 18 August 1800) was an 18th-century French botanist and civil servant. Born into an affluent upper-class Parisian family, connections with the French Royal Court secured him the position of ...

in 1786, and made the new combination ''A. chilensis''.

Distribution

''Aristotelia chilensis'' is native to

and

near the southwest coast of South America. It is found naturally in Chilean

rainforests Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainforest ...

. Its native range spans the area between the

Coquimbo Coquimbo is a port city, commune and capital of the Elqui Province, located on the Pan-American Highway, in the Coquimbo Region of Chile. Coquimbo is situated in a valley south of La Serena, with which it forms Greater La Serena with more than ...

and Aysén regions of Chile, and is in total.

Ecology

Maqui berries are a favored food for birds at the end of summer.

Deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated d ...

of the

Valdivian temperate rainforests The Valdivian temperate forests (NT0404) is an terrestrial ecoregion, ecoregion on the west coast of southern South America, in Chile and Argentina. It is part of the Neotropical realm. The forests are named after the city of Valdivia, Chile, Vald ...

in Chile suppresses

seed dispersal In Spermatophyte plants, seed dispersal is the movement, spread or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants have limited mobility and rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their seeds, including both abiotic vectors, ...

by birds and leads to

inbreeding depression Inbreeding depression is the reduced biological fitness which has the potential to result from inbreeding (the breeding of related individuals). Biological fitness refers to an organism's ability to survive and perpetuate its genetic material. In ...

Harvesting and cultivation

The berries of ''A. chilensis'' are collected from wild plants from December to March of each year by families, mainly

Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who sha ...

, who collect their harvest near the

Andes Mountains The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the List of mountain ranges#Mountain ranges by length, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range i ...

. The harvesting process involves collecting the side

branches A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term ''twig'' usually ...

of trees, shaking them to separate the berries and leaves from the branches, and then employing a mechanical process to separate the berries from the leaves. The stored fruits are sold in local markets, with prices ranging from . The average area yield is about per hectare annually, with an estimated yearly total of only , due to remote access and difficulty of transportation. ''Aristotelia chilensis'' is planted in home gardens and is not grown on an

orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of larg ...

scale. Most of the fruits on the market have been gathered from the wild. Maqui is

frost Frost is a thin layer of ice on a solid surface, which forms from water vapor in an above-freezing atmosphere coming in contact with a solid surface whose temperature is below freezing, and resulting in a phase change from water vapor (a gas) ...

sensitive and fairly tolerant of seaside conditions. It prefers a well-drained soil in full sun, with some protection against cold, drying winds. The soil should be slightly

acidic In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a sequ ...

, with moderate

fertility Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Fertili ...

. ''Aristotelia chilensis'' can be planted in USDA zones 8 to 12. It is cultivated in Spain, and in milder, moister areas of Britain, where winter freezes cause dieback, thereby stimulating growth of more

shoots In botany, a plant shoot consists of any plant stem together with its appendages, leaves and lateral buds, flowering stems, and flower buds. The new growth from seed germination that grows upward is a shoot where leaves will develop. In the spri ...

in spring.

Propagation

Seeds of ''A. chilensis'' germinate without cold

stratification Stratification may refer to: Mathematics * Stratification (mathematics), any consistent assignment of numbers to predicate symbols * Data stratification in statistics Earth sciences * Stable and unstable stratification * Stratification, or str ...

. In zones with the possibility of frost, it is recommended to sow in spring in a

greenhouse A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of Transparent ceramics, transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic condit ...

. If they have grown enough, by autumn, the new plants can be planted into individual pots . The potted plants should stay in the greenhouse for the first winter. The following year, after the last expected frost in spring, the plants can be planted out into their final positions. In their first winter outdoors, some type of

protection is required. For further propagation,

vegetative propagation Vegetative reproduction (also known as vegetative propagation, vegetative multiplication or cloning) is any form of asexual reproduction occurring in plants in which a new plant grows from a fragment or cutting of the parent plant or speci ...

is possible: cuttings of wood with a length of can be planted into pots. These cuttings normally root, and can be planted out in the following spring.

Anthocyanin content

Polyphenol Polyphenols () are a large family of naturally occurring organic compounds characterized by multiples of phenol units. They are abundant in plants and structurally diverse. Polyphenols include flavonoids, tannic acid, and ellagitannin, some of ...

research on maqui berries showed

anthocyanin Anthocyanins (), also called anthocyans, are water-soluble vacuolar pigments that, depending on their pH, may appear red, purple, blue, or black. In 1835, the German pharmacist Ludwig Clamor Marquart gave the name Anthokyan to a chemical compo ...

content to include eight

glucoside A glucoside is a glycoside that is derived from glucose. Glucosides are common in plants, but rare in animals. Glucose is produced when a glucoside is hydrolysed by purely chemical means, or decomposed by fermentation or enzymes. The name was o ...

pigments of

delphinidin Delphinidin (also delphinidine) is an anthocyanidin, a primary plant pigment, and also an antioxidant. Delphinidin gives blue hues to flowers in the genera ''Viola'' and ''Delphinium''. It also gives the blue-red color of the grape that produces ...

and

cyanidin Cyanidin is a natural organic compound. It is a particular type of anthocyanidin (glycoside version called anthocyanins). It is a pigment found in many red berries including grapes, bilberry, blackberry, blueberry, cherry, chokeberry, cranb ...

, with the principal anthocyanin being delphinidin 3-sambubioside-5-glucoside (34% of total anthocyanins). The average total anthocyanin content was per of fresh fruit, or per of dry fruit, ranking maqui berries low among darkly

pigment A pigment is a colored material that is completely or nearly insoluble in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compo ...

ed fruits for anthocyanin content (see table at anthocyanins). One study found that anthocyanins are also present in maqui leaves.

References

External links

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2707036 chilensis Flora of Argentina Flora of Chile Trees of Chile Berries Fruits originating in South America Dioecious plants