Pyrola asarifolia / pink pyrola
- 4 to 25 nodding red (or pink) and white flowers in a loose raceme
- round petals, edges often curved down
- green style extends out of flower like elephant’s trunk
- flower stems may be over a foot tall
- leaves are “liver” shaped or “ginger” shaped and shiny – round-ish but wider than long
Also known as: liverleaf wintergreen, bog wintergreen, pink wintergreen, pink shinleaf
See also: Chimaphila umbellata / pipsissewa
Pink pyrola is one of 5 species of Pyrola found in Idaho but is quite distinctive in its flower, with its round petals, edges often curved down, and the green style that extends out of flower “like an elephant’s trunk”. The stamens are hidden inside the flower. The nearly leafless flowering stalks are by far the tallest part of the plant, the leaves sitting down at ground-level as a rosette. Four to 25 nodding flowers hang “upside down” in a loose raceme along the stem. Both the style and the arrangement of the flowers are critical in distinguishing pink pyrola from pipsissewa.
This wonderfully fancy little plant can be a bit hard to recognize if it is not flowering, but the rosette leaves are of kidney-shaped and leathery. The leaves have also been described as looking like wild ginger, hence the specific name asarifolia (wild ginger is Asarum spp.)
Pyrola asarifolia is extremely shade tolerant – indeed, it prefers the shade – and just sits there down in the understory. It also prefers moist soils. But if your eye wanders that way, the shiny leaves are quite distinctive and diagnostic. Non-flowering pink pyrola may also be easier seen in the shoulder or mud seasons for these shiny leaves, and because then it would be easier to see that it is an evergreen, glabrous, creeping perennial.
Pink pyrola is self-pollinating and produces seeds that can remain in the seed bank for some time. Mostly, however, it spreads vegetatively, being shallow rooted and rhizomatous.
