General:
Perennial herb from slender rhizome; flowering stems 5-25 cm tall, single.

Leaves:
Evergreen, basal, leathery, lustrous, oval to egg-shaped or circular, the blades 1-4.5 cm long, 1-5 cm wide, from nearly heart-shaped to blunt, rounded, or pointed at base, blunt to rounded at tip, nearly entire to toothed or undulating on margin, green above, often reddish beneath, often whitened along the veins; stalks 1-8 cm long.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a 4- to 11-flowered terminal, cylindric raceme, with dry, brown, membranous, broadly lanceolate bracts, the flowers weakly bilaterally symmetric; flower stalks 2-8 mm long; petals broadly rounded, creamy white with some pink, 7-12 mm long; sepals petal-like, purplish with irregular, membranous margins, elliptic-oblong, 2-4 mm long, distinctly veined; anthers about 2 mm long, rounded and rather blunt at the base, yellow to pink, the pores on very short tubes; filaments slender, almost thread-like at the summit; styles up to 6 mm long at maturity, bent at the base, with a collar below the stigma.

Fruits:
Capsules, globe-shaped, about 6 mm wide.

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

If more than one illustration is available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below. Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.

Illustration Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Pyrola borealis Rydb.
Pyrola canadensis Andres
Pyrola gormanii Rydb.
Pyrola grandiflora var. canadensis (Andres) Porsild
Pyrola grandiflora var. gormanii Rydb.
Pyrola occidentalis R. Br. ex D. Don