It is delightful to find the Chickweed Wintergreen as it is rather a
rare plant. It grows in fir woods and on heaths in hilly districts, and
it blooms all summer. There is no other plant at all like this
Wintergreen, so you will have no difficulty in recognising it.
The stem is very delicate and wiry, and at the end it bears a spreading
rosette of six long pointed leaves. These leaves are smooth and shiny:
in autumn they are often tinged with purple.
You may find one or two solitary leaves lower down on the stem; if so,
these leaves are quite small, and they are rounded at the ends.
The flowers look like white stars. They have five or seven long narrow
petals with pointed tips. These petals lie open in a circle, and you can
see five or seven thread-like stamens with tiny pink heads rising in the
centre, round a small green seed-vessel.
The flower-stalks grow from the centre of the green leaf rosette. Each
flower has a delicate pink stalk of its own, and you may find three or
four stalks springing from the same place. But more often the flower is
solitary.