Pyrola media Sw.

Foodplant / parasite
telium of Pucciniastrum pyrolae parasitises live Pyrola media

Herbs 10–30(–33) cm tall. Rhizome brown, slender, strongly branched. Leaves 4–6, rosulate; petiole usually longer than blade; leaf blade slightly green abaxially, green adaxially, orbicular or orbicular-ovate, 2.9–3.5 × 2.3–2.6(–3) cm, leathery, base rounded or cuneate-rounded, margin obscurely crenate with shallow and broad or sometimes flat crenations, apex rounded. Scapes 10–33 cm, with a solitary acute bract at or below middle; raceme 3–5(–7) cm, 5–12-flowered. Pedicels (5–)8–9 mm in fruit; bract oblong, longer than pedicel, 4–6 × 1.5–2.5 mm, apex rounded. Flowers slightly nodding, half-opened, saucer-shaped. Sepals reddish, ovate-lanceolate, margins not overlapping, apex acuminate, often recurved at tip. Petals white or at base pinkish, elliptic or suborbicular, 6–8 × 4.5–6 mm, apex rounded. Filaments connivent around pistil, flattened, glabrous; anther yellow, (1.9–)2.1–2.3(–2.5) mm. Style slightly exserted, somewhat declined, 5–5.5 mm, dilated at apex into a ring; stigma 5-lobed. Capsule compressed-globose, 4–5 × 6.5–8 mm. Fl. Jun–Jul.

S Jilin (Changbai Shan), N Xinjiang (Altay Shan) [Mongolia, Russia; C Asia, Europe].

Coniferous forests; 1900–2600 m.

Pyrola media, the intermediate wintergreen, is a flowering plant in the genus Pyrola, native to northern and eastern Europe and Western Asia.

It is a herbaceous evergreen perennial plant with a basal rosette of leaves and a single erect flowering stem 15–30 cm tall. The leaves are round, up to 4.5 cm diameter. The flowers are white or pale pink, 7–11 mm diameter, with a straight style extending beyond the petals.

The species is rare and declining in the British Isles.