Streptopus amplexifolius (Clasping-Leaved Twisted Stalk) - photos and description
Leaves bent back to show flowers
Flower stem
bent like an elbow (the "twisted stalk")
General: Perennial with stout stems and a branching growth habit. Notable for its elbowed flower stalks, giving the stalks a twisted appearance. Stems bristly hairy at the bottom, stems glabrous at the top.
Flowers: Flowers are greenish-white, single, from leaf axils, and hang underneath the plant on a flower stem bent like an elbow. Flowers are fragrant.
Leaves: Leaves are lanceolate to ovate, alternate, clasp the stem. Leaf highlighted in photo above was 10.5 cm long and 4 cm wide.
Height: Height listed in Budd's Flora to 100 cm, we measured plants to 85 cm tall.
Habitat: Moist woods.
Abundance: Rare, this plant is listed as an S3 (as of 2021) by the Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre.
Origin: Native.
When and where photographed: Above photos taken July 2nd, in moist spruce woods in the Porcupine Hills, 400 km north east of our home in Regina, SK.