Nature and Culture in the Northern Forest: Region, Heritage, and Environment in the Rural Northeast

Meeting Twinflower (Linnaea borealis)

O ur alpine flora class hiked upward toward Mount Adams in the White Mountains on a July afternoon. Having poured through field guides and scientific papers on alpine plants, our eyes were tuned to the green around us. We noticed, in spite of the rocky trail and our 50-plus-pound packs, the transition from northern hardwoods to spruce-fir forest. Many of the broad-leaved trees and shrubs slowly vanished , and in their place flourished the dark growth of moss, red spruce, and balsam fir. The ascent reminded me of Clingman’s Dome in the Smokies or Mount Mitchell in the Black Mountains. We were climbing in the Whites, however, in the purported home to not only the fiercest weather on earth but also the largest alpine zone in eastern America. As a graduate alpine flora class, we had trekked here to study plants above the treeline: tiny, wind-blasted blooms nestled in crevices and tucked tightly to the earth. Little did I know the plant that would fascinate me most would be a sub-alpine plant. The connections that radiate from this wildflower—particularly to some of our exemplary naturalists —are endlessly surprising. Before sunrise of our first morning, I rose and slipped out the door of our cabin with my boots in hand. The air was crisp and smelled of balsam. My legs felt tight from the ascent, and I sauntered to a craggy overlook a few hundred yards from the cabin, perched on a rock, and Meeting Twinflower (Linnaea borealis) timothy stetter 18 • eNCouNters stared east as the morning light grew and shifted colors. The cloudsteeped form of Mount Jefferson framed my field of view. The song of a white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) pierced the stillness of morning on this northern mountainside. The sun rose, and I stood and headed back to the cabin. With a double glance, I spotted pink flowers low to the ground, sprouting from what resembled a bed of moss. Crouching to see, I recognized the plant I had before only seen in drawings and photographs: Linnaea borealis, the twinflower. This meeting would mark the first step in my fascination for this wild plant. If it had not been flowering, I might have overlooked it. The twinflower is accurately described as dainty. Its evergreen leaves reach only a few centimeters in length, and the plant spreads low along the ground— a growth form called “trailing” or “creeping” by botanists. The woody stem of the twinflower is the source for a much older name; the Dena’Ina people of present-day Alaska called the plant “k’ela H’lia,” which translates as “mouse’s rope.”1 Its trailing stems support leaves growing opposite one another. Leaves are variably-sized but small, short-stalked, and marked by a few shallow teeth in the upper half of the leaf edge. They feature centimeter-long hairs sprouting from both sides; viewed with a hand lens, these hairs seem disproportionally long for the leaf. Undersides of the leaves are lighter green than the upper surface. Older leaves furthest down the stem fade to a copper-brown. The common name twinflower is a tribute to its delicate pairs of flowers . Along the horizontal stem, flower stalks shoot upwards every few centimeters. These stalks split at the top into Ys. From both tips dangles a tubular, pink-and-white flower. With my hand lens, I see that the five petals sparkle as if dusted with fine glitter, and the flower’s inside appears tangled in cottony hairs not unlike a cotton swab or thistle down. Twinflower’s species name, borealis, reveals the plant’s preference for cool, northern sites. Borealis descends from Boreas, Greek god of the north wind. You can find twinflower in northern hardwoods, northern spruce-fir forests (also called boreal forest or taiga), cool bogs, and even into the krummholz or “crooked wood” zone below treeline. A few plants, including clintonia or bluebead lily (Clintonia borealis) and starflower (Trientalis borealis), share with the Northern Lights twinflower’s species-name and habitat. (Twinflower represents the only species within meetiNg twiNFlower • 19 the genus Linnaea.) Other associated wildflowers include Canada mayflower (Maianthemum canadense), bunchberry (Cornus canadensis), and goldthread (Coptis groenlandica). As for associated naturalists, twinflower carries an esteemed list. One of these is Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862). As he did with many other plants, Thoreau recorded his observations of twinflower, particularly when it flowered...