Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Magnoliopsida -- dicotyledons

Order: Ericales

Family: Ericaceae -- heath

Common Name: white vein pyrola, whiteveined wintergreen, leafless pyrola

Species Code: PYPI2

Origin: Native to coniferous forests and especially common in ponderosa pine forests from British Columbia to California and east to Montana and New Mexico.

Rare: no

Form: forb, perennial from rhizomes, glabrous; flowering stems single, reddish-brown, 10-25 cm tall, often leafless at the base, with several lanceolate bracts above; sterile stems with several leaves. Plants lacking sterile stems and therefore lacking leaves are often referred to P. aphylla.

Mature height: 4-10 inches

Duration: perennial

Habitat Type: forest

Wetland Indicator Status: not listed

Leaves: basal leaves evergreen, petiolate, blades ovate to elliptic or oblanceolate, 2-7 cm long, leathery (coriaceous), usually dark green with grey mottling on the upper surface, lower surface often purplish (or glaucous when young), margins thickened, entire to serrulate; cauline leaves reduced to lanceolate bracts, mostly lacking chlorophyll. Plants lacking leaves are often referred to P. aphylla.

Flowers: borne in a raceme; pedicles spreading, 4-8 mm long; calyx lobes 5, green to reddish, obovate to triangular; corolla about 1 cm wide, petals yellowish or greenish-white to purplish, 6-8 mm long, elliptic to ovate.

Flower color: yellow, green, purple

Bloom: July

Fruit: capsule, 4-6 mm wide, globose; seeds 0.5-0.7 mm long, brown.

Characteristics:
Some treatments place Pyrola in the family Ericaceae, subfamily Pyroloideae. Others elevate Pyroloideae to family status as Pyrolaceae.
P. picta, P. asarifolia, P. dentata, and P. virens (P. clorantha) all may have leafless forms. Since the different species are primarily distinguished by the morphology of the leaves, leafless forms are often referred to as P. aphylla, although P. aphylla is not a true species. Camp (1940) placed most of the leafless forms in P. picta. He found both leafed and leafless forms attached to the same rhizome. Haber (1987) confirmed Camp’s work and further included P. dentata in P. picta. Through molecular analysis, Freudenstein (1999) placed P. aphylla and P. picta in the same clade. P. picta may also hybridize with other species (Baldwin et al 2004).
Reproduces both sexually by seed and vegetatively by rhizomes.
2n=46 (Flora of North America Editorial Committee 1993, Baldwin et al 2004).
Flowers are perfect.
Fruit is a capsule.

Sun requirement: shade tolerant

Soil moisture: mesic

Sowing time: no information is available

Transplant time: no information is available

Stratification: no information is available

Seed yield: no information is available

Seed harvest: medium difficulty

Seed first harvest: no information is available

Seed cleaning: no information is available

Planting duration: no information is available

Seed insect problem: no information is available

Seed shatter: no information is available

Seed size: small

Seed harvest date: no information is available

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Keywords: native perennial upland forest forb

Propagation:
no information is available.

References:
Baldwin, B.G., S. Boyd, B.J. Ertter, D.J. Keil, R.W. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.H. Wilken (eds). 2004. Jepson Online Interchange for California Floristics. University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley, CA. Accessed 3/4/10 online at http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/interchange.html

Camp, W.H. 1940. Aphyllous Forms in Pyrola. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 67:453-465.

Flora of North America Editorial Committee, eds. 1993+. Flora of North America North of Mexico. 7+ vols. New York and Oxford. Oxford University Press. Online at http://www.fna.org/FNA/

Freudenstein, John V. 1999. Relationships and Characteristics in Pyrolideae (Ericaceae) Based on ITS Sequences, Morphology, and Development. Systematic Botany 24:398-408.

Haber, Erich. 1987. Variability, Distribution, and Systematics of Pyrola picta s.l. (Ericaceae) in Western North America. Systematic Botany 12:324-335.

Links:
Plant Profile from the USDA PLANTS Database
Species information from the University of Washington Herbarium