Linnaea borealis

Twinflower

Peck Lake
03-July-2002

Note that to key family Caprifoliaceae from Linnaea borealis in Budd's Flora (noting the 4 stamens), you must select the plant as a herb.  Yet to key genus Linnaea from Linnaea borealis in the same flora, you must select the plant as a "low, trailing evergreen shrub".

Linnaea Characteristics

low, trailing, slender, slightly woody evergreen  shrubs

leaves simple, at most deeply lobed

flowers in pairs on long peduncles

4 stamens

fruit small, dry

 

Caprifoliaceae Characteristics

shrubs (erect or climbing) or trailing plants

plants green or with some chlorophyll

plants without milky juice

not climbing plants, not tendril bearing

stems rounded

leaves opposite

leaves without stipules

flowers with two floral rings, but with the petals wholly or partly united forming a tube or bell

calyx not modified as a pappus or other special structure

flowers not in heads or spikes

stamens alternate with the corolla-lobes and of the same number, or fewer

stamens inserted on the corolla

4 or 5 stamens

ovary inferior, flowers epigynous

ovary with 2-many fertile locules and 2-many ovules