Flower:

Raceme of 3 to 11 hanging flowers on short stalks at the top of the stem. Flowers are white, often tinged with pink or green, with five roundish petals 1/8 to ~¼ inch (3 to 5 mm) long and a ring of yellowish to brown-tipped stamens surrounding a short, straight, pale green style that does not extend below the petals. Flowers are up to 1/3 inch across when fully open, the petals not widely spreading.

The calyx cupping the flower has 5 lobes that are light green or tinged red, triangular, about as long as wide and about ¼ as long as the petals. At the base of a flower stalk is a papery bract, narrowly lance-triangular to egg-shaped, as long as or longer than the stalk.

Leaves and stems:

Leaves are basal, somewhat leathery, up to ~1 inch (to 30 mm) long, nearly as wide, roundish, broadest above, at or below the middle, hairless, mostly rounded at the tip, rounded to somewhat heart-shaped at the base, on a stalk that is as long as or shorter than the blade. Edges are shallowly scalloped to minutely toothed, often having obscure teeth with a minute point (denticulate). The upper surface is dark to medium green, dull to somewhat shiny. Flowering stems are smooth and may have a few scale-like leaves below the flower cluster.

Fruit:

Fruit is a capsule 1/8 to 1/6 inch (3 to 4 mm) long, wider than long, somewhat compressed globular with 5 sections, each containing many seeds.

Notes:

Small Shinleaf is the rarest of Minnesota's five Pyrola species and also its smallest. It spreads by underground stems (rhizomes) and can be found in loose colonies of a few to dozens of plants. While it may be confused with our two other white Pyrolas, Round-leaved Pyrola (Pyrola americana) and Shinleaf (Pyrola elliptica), both of these have flowers that open widely, with a long curved style that hangs below the flower like an elephant's trunk. The leaves of Small Shinleaf resemble those of One-sided Pyrola (Orthilia secunda) and may be found growing right next to it, but the one-sided flowering stem of O. secunda sets these two apart. Small Shinleaf is also a far northern species, its range is restricted to cool, moist forests and swamps in the Arrowhead region with the vast majority in Cook County. Pyrola minor was listed by the DNR as a Special concern species in 1996. It is listed as Endangered in Wisconsin.