A Little Winter in the Summer

Wintergreen flowers

While hiking up Thomas Creek, just southwest of Reno, I stumbled upon a beautiful little flower that I have never seen before, a bog or pink wintergreen (Pyrola asarifolia). It has a long, single stem rising up above a rosette of dark green, round leaves. The stem is sprinkled with little pink flowers which are turned downward, hiding their reproductive parts.

Leaf rosette

Wintergreen often grows in large groups because they have extensive rhizomes (underground stems) that sprout plants up all over an area. The bog wintergreen tends to grow in shade and in moist forested areas. Because they are hemi-mycotrophic (partially dependent on fungi), they need a lot of dead wood and compost to create an environment that has just the right balance of fungi and other soil nutrients, otherwise they will not grow.

Dense clusters of wintergreen plants

The leaves of wintergreen are edible, but they tend to be tough and bitter. It has been used as a broad-spectrum astringent, treating urinary diseases, mouth and throat inflammation, hemorrhoids and insect bites. The leaves leaves are high in methyl salicylate, a natural painkiller.

Close up of a wintergreen flower

Wintergreen flowers on the single stem