White Clintonia

(Clintonia umbellulata)

 

   

 

Color Photograph: NRCS Plants Database, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Line Drawing: Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada, Second Edition.

 

White Clintonia (Clintonia umbellulata (Michx.) Morong)

Identification: Flowers white, commonly spotted with green and purple and borne in an umbel on the end of a long, leafless flowering stalk. Berries black. Leaves broad, ovate, with fine hairs along the margins and grouped in a basal rosette. Plant 8 to 20 inches in height.

Distribution: New York in the north to Tennessee and Kentucky in the west, southward to Georgia.

Habitat: White Clintonia is found in wet woods, meadows, and swamps.

Flowering period: May to July.

Similar Species: Clintonia has yellow or yellow-green flowers with fewer (3 to 5) flowers at the apex of the flowering spike. The basal leaves of Clintonia lack fine hairs on the leaf margins.

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