There are a good many kinds of Pyrola; leaves mostly from the root;
flowers usually nodding, in clusters, with bracted flower-stalks;
sepals and petals five; stamens ten; capsule roundish, five-lobed,
cobwebby on the edges. These plants are often called Shinleaf, because
English peasants used the leaves for plasters. Pyrola is from the Latin
for "pear," because of the resemblance of the leaves of some kinds.
The aromatic Wintergreen, or Checker-berry, used for flavoring, is a
Gaultheria, of the Heath Family.
[Sidenote: =Pyrola=
_Pýrola bracteàta_
=Pink
Summer
California=]
One of our most attractive woodland plants, from six to twenty inches
tall, with handsome, glossy, rather leathery, slightly scalloped
leaves. The buds are deep reddish-pink and the flowers are half an inch
across, pink or pale pink, and waxy, with deep pink stamens and a green
pistil, with a conspicuous style, curving down and the tip turning up.
The pretty color and odd shape of these flowers give them a character
all their own and they are sweet-scented. This is found in Yosemite and
in other cool, shady, moist places, and there are several similar kinds.
There are several kinds of Chimaphila, of North America and Asia, with
reclining stems and erect, leafy branches.
[Sidenote: =Pipsissewa=
_Chimáphìla Menzièsii_
=White
Summer
Northwest and California=]
A very attractive little evergreen plant, three to six inches high,
with dark green, glossy, leathery, toothed, leaves, sometimes mottled
with white, and one to three, pretty flowers, about three-quarters of
an inch across, with yellowish sepals and waxy-white or pinkish petals,
more or less turned back. The ovary forms a green hump in the center
and has a broad, flat, sticky stigma, with five scallops, and the ten
anthers are pale yellow or purplish. This has a delicious fragrance,
like Lily-of-the-valley, and grows in pine woods in the Sierra Nevada
and Coast Ranges. Chimaphila is a Greek name, meaning "winter-loving."