yellow willowherb

Description:

Unbranched herbaceous plant. Flowers have four creamy-white lobed (heart-shaped) petals that overlap forming a trumpet-shape. They consistently have 7 stamen and a single pistil with a very large, head of stigma so heavy as to weigh down the pistil. They bloom in loose few-flowered terminal clusters. Bees are among their pollinators. Leaves are opposite, lanceolate with oddly toothed margins and clasping at the stalk.

Habitat:

Spotted growing on a very wet slope next to a ditch of stream-like water from the melted snow in the mountains above. This plant was growing at a mid-elevation alongside sitka alders and yellow monkey-flower with maidenhair fern growing on the cliffs just above it.

Notes:

It was spotted growing in a large patches tightly together forming the appearance of a shrub.