The following was received via email from England: I am an amateur photographer living in the UK and having a keen interest in photography of wild flowers in their natural habitat. Although I am a graduate scientist, my botanical training is minimal (restricted to one afternoon at Kew Gardens during a five day photographic course run by Heather Angel.) I have a particular interest in the flowers of the Rocky Mountains (and Alberta and British Columbia in general) and have made several trips over the last few years in this area. My interest in Canada (and the west) is linked to the fact that I have a daughter living in Toronto and my wife has cousins in Calgary and Vancouver. On my last visit to the Rockies in 2001 I returned home with about 200 flower photographs. Many of the flowers I have identified from reference books but two in particular I am uncertain of at the moment. Both were in fact taken in Alberta, but no doubt also grow in BC, and I wonder if you are willing and able to help me identify them from the attached copies. The first one, which has a flower head with what look like many tiny pale cream bells, I have been completely unable to identify (or is it one of the dock family? - the flower head looks the right shape for a UK common dock but I don't know about the leaves). It was taken somewhere in Waterton Lakes N.P., probably either on the trail to Bertha Falls or on the road to Red Rock Canyon. The photograph was taken on July 2. The second one, which has reddish stems and is still in bud - flower colour therefore unknown, I have tentatively identified as either red-stemmed saxifrage (saxifraga lyallii) or possibly pink wintergreen (pyrola asarifolia) - or maybe it is something else! It was taken on the lakeside path at Lake Louise, around June 22. If you have anyone who is able to help me I should be very grateful. (I've cropped the images to a smaller size - Daniel)
The second photo is certainly a Pyrola and almost certainly Pyrola asarifolia, commonly known as pink wintergreen. Some of the clues in identifying it are the scale-like leaf on the flowering stem, the leathery-like basal leaves, and the partially fused calyx with pointed tips (like a crown) that subtend the emerging flowers. Here's a photo of what it looks like when flowering from the Wildflowers of Southern California photo gallery
Tough Call Based on what I can make out from the top picture I am going to guess that this is a variant of Smilacine racemosa, which is sometimes called False Solomon’s Seal. Although the cultivated form tends to be less upright and lacks the bright coloration of the scape (flower stem), there are similarities. Most plants in cultivation are grown from only a few specimens collected in the wild, so they tend to be quite consistent and fairly easy to identify. However, in the wild, all bets are off since a single species can vary considerably from one region to the next. Have a look at this image taken in the wild to compare. Still, without the actual plant in front of me (and a good botanical key), I'm just guessing.
