Aristotelia chilensis (Maqui or Chilean Wineberry) is a species of the Elaeocarpaceae

Elaeocarpaceae

Elaeaocarpaceae is a family of flowering plants. The family approximately contains 605 species of trees and shrubs in 12 genera. The largest genera are Elaeocarpus, with about 350 species, and Sloanea, with about 150....

 family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 native to the Valdivian temperate rainforests of Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 and adjacent regions of southern Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

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Description

It is a small dioecious

Dioecious

Dioecy is the property of a group of biological organisms that have males and females, but not members that have organs of both sexes at the same time. I.e., those whose individual members can usually produce only one type of gamete; each individual organism is thus distinctly female or male...

 tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 reaching 4-5 m in height, evergreen

Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...

, and with a divided trunk with smooth bark. Its branches are abundant, thin and flexible. Its leaves are simple, opposite, pendulous, oval-lanceolate, with serrated edges, glabrous, coriaceous with venation and strong red petiole

Petiole (botany)

In botany, the petiole is the stalk attaching the leaf blade to the stem. The petiole usually has the same internal structure as the stem. Outgrowths appearing on each side of the petiole are called stipules. Leaves lacking a petiole are called sessile, or clasping when they partly surround the...

s. Its flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

 is small and white, yielding a small edible fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

 (maqui berry) that is a favored food for birds. The small, purple-black berries are approximately 4-6 mm in diameter. The maqui berry is also known as the Chilean wineberry, and locally as maqui or maquei, queldrón, ach, koelon, and clon.

Polyphenols

Only limited polyphenol research has been completed on the maqui berry showing its anthocyanin

Anthocyanin

Anthocyanins are water-soluble vacuolar pigments that may appear red, purple, or blue according to pH...

 content includes eight glucoside

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....

 pigments of delphinidin

Delphinidin

Delphinidin is an anthocyanidin, a primary plant pigment, and also an antioxidant. Delphinidin gives blue hues to flowers like violas and delphiniums...

 and cyanidin

Cyanidin

Cyanidin is a natural organic compound. It is a particular type of anthocyanidin . It is a pigment found in many red berries including but not limited to grapes, bilberry, blackberry, blueberry, cherry, cranberry, elderberry, hawthorn, loganberry, acai berry and raspberry...

, the principal anthocyanin being delphinidin 3-sambubioside-5-glucoside (34% of total anthocyanins). The average total anthocyanin content was 138 mg per 100 g of fresh fruit (212 mg per 100g of dry fruit), placing maqui low among berries for anthocyanin content (see Anthocyanins#Occurrence for tabulated content data).

Anthocyanins are also present in maqui leaves.

Uses

According to myths, the edible fruit was eaten by the Mapuche

Mapuche

The Mapuche are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina. They constitute a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who shared a common social, religious and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage. Their influence extended...

. Claude Gay

Claude Gay

Claude Gay, real name : Claudio Gay Mouret , was a French botanist, naturalist and illustrator.The Cordillera de Claudio Gay in the Atacama Region of Chile is named after him....

 documented in 1844 that natives used maqui to prepare chicha

Chicha

For the musical genre, see Peruvian cumbiaChicha is a term used in some regions of Latin America for several varieties of fermented and non-fermented beverages, rather often to those derived from maize and similar non-alcoholic beverages...

 as may have been referenced in his "Physical Atlas of History and Politics of Chile". Today, maqui may be used to make jam, juice, an astringent

Astringent

An astringent substance is a chemical compound that tends to shrink or constrict body tissues, usually locally after topical medicinal application. The word "astringent" derives from Latin adstringere, meaning "to bind fast"...

 or as an ingredient in processed foods or beverages. It has been planted in Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

.