Pyrola americanaSweet

American wintergreen

WFO wfo-0001128975 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Pyrola americana, photographed by Corey Farwell
fig. a Corey Farwell, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-29 / obs. 202075865
Pyrola americana, photographed by Rochelle Davis
fig. b Rochelle Davis, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196812266
Pyrola americana, photographed by Luka S. (someplant)
fig. c Luka S. (someplant), CC0 1.0 / obs. 196791689
Pyrola americana, photographed by gwt2102
fig. d gwt2102, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195086066
Pyrola americana, photographed by Violet T.
fig. e Violet T., CC BY 4.0 / obs. 190753806
Pyrola americana, photographed by Jim Arrigoni
fig. f Jim Arrigoni, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 190603668
Pyrola americana, photographed by Mark Apgar
fig. g Mark Apgar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 188584653
Pyrola americana, photographed by Erik Schiff
fig. h Erik Schiff, CC0 1.0 / obs. 188544738

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 32 botanical countries

Regions where Pyrola americana is native: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Labrador, Maine, Manitoba, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Newfoundland, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Prince Edward I., Québec, Rhode I., South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin ConnecticutIllinoisIndianaKentuckyLabradorMaineManitobaMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaNew BrunswickNew HampshireNew JerseyNew YorkNewfoundlandNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaNova ScotiaOhioOntarioPennsylvaniaPrince Edward I.QuébecSouth DakotaTennesseeVermontVirginiaWest VirginiaWisconsin DelawareRhode I.
Native distribution of Pyrola americana, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Connecticut CNT NORTHERN AMERICA
Delaware DEL
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Kentucky KTY
Labrador LAB
Maine MAI
Manitoba MAN
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
New Brunswick NBR
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
Newfoundland NFL
North Carolina NCA
North Dakota NDA
Nova Scotia NSC
Ohio OHI
Ontario ONT
Pennsylvania PEN
Prince Edward I. PEI
Québec QUE
Rhode I. RHO
South Dakota SDA
Tennessee TEN
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 482 in flower of 2,491 examined

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Pyrola americana observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 482 of 2,491 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 2 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Pyrola heterophyla Raf.
  • Pyrola obovata Bertol.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.