Look for his petit flower on the shady floors of deep conifer forests at high elevations. Each 2–6 inch tall, unbranched, leafless flower stalk bears a single nodding flower with creamy white petals. Note the rounded basal leaves with tiny teeth on the edges. Also called shy maiden and one-flowered wintergreen.

FLOWER: June–August. Flowers 1/2–1 inch diameter (12–25 mm) with 5 wide-spreading, oval, white petals; cylindrical style is tipped with 5 pointed, auger-like stigma lobes The nodding flower develops into an erect capsule with about 1,000 tiny seeds.

LEAVES: Appearing basal or whorled around base of stem. Blade 1–2 inches long (25–50 mm), oval to round; margins with sharp to rounded teeth.

HABITAT: Moist soils; stream sides, mossy, shady, cool, damp woods, mountain meadows; spruce-fir forests.

ELEVATION: 9,200–11,150 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CA, CO, NM, NV, UT; widespread in states west of Rockies and eastward through Great Lake states to Maine; circumboreal.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Sidebells Wintergreen, Orthilia secunda, in the northern, central, and western mountains in NM, has clusters of bell-shaped flowers along one side the stem, and leaves on the lower 1/3 of the stem. Green-flowered Wintergreen,  Pyrola chlorantha, has nodding flowers that spiral around the stem, and pale, creamy green leaves.

NM COUNTIES: Mountains of NM in high-elevation moist, forested habitats: Catron, Cibola, Colfax, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Mora, Rio Arriba, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe,Taos.