Pedicularis macrodonta (Purple Lousewort) - photos and description
Origin: Native.
General: Upright annual or biennial with a branching growth habit. Plants glabrous.
Flowers: Flowers grow in leaf axils and a loose raceme at stem tips, magenta in colour measured to 12 mm long, irregular, upper lip hooded, lower lip ciliate fringed.
Leaves: Leaves cauline, lanceolate, alternate, divided to midrib, leaf highlighted in photo measured at 4 cm long and 1.5 cm wide.
Height: Height listed in Budd's Flora to 50 cm tall, we measured plants to 62 cm tall.
Habitat: Fens and bogs in the boreal forest, growing in sphagnum moss.
Abundance: Rare, ranked as an S3 (as of 2021) by the Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre.
Synonym: Listed in some of the field guides we use as Pecicularis parviflora.
When and where photographed: Photos taken July 5th in a pitcher plant bog in the Nisbet Forest, about 400 km north of Regina, SK, and July 23rd wet mossy woods Hudson Bay district about 400 km north of our home in Regina, Saskatchewan.