Twinflower is a tiny plant with a big reputation. It creeps across the forest floor on long, trailing stems, sending up short shoots with small, round, leathery leaves in pairs. In early summer each shoot lifts a thin stalk that forks like a Y and holds two nodding, pink to white bells side by side. The flowers are strongly fragrant and each one lasts about a week.
The genus honors Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist widely seen as the father of modern taxonomy, and twinflower is said to have been his favorite plant. It grows all the way around the northern part of the globe, and the form found in the Pacific Northwest is known as Pacific twinflower.
Twinflower seldom grows from seed. Instead it spreads by runners into wide, loose mats, and it does well in anything from deep forest shade to open meadows. When it does make seed, the fruits can hitch rides on fur and feathers. In parts of the Northwest it makes up a small but real share of the winter diet of Roosevelt elk. Fire kills it easily, and it returns slowly, mostly from patches that escaped the flames. Look for its mats under Douglas-fir and other conifers at almost any elevation on Mt. Hood.
How to identify it
Look for trailing, slightly woody runners with short upright shoots up to about 4 inches tall, bearing small, rounded, opposite leaves, often with a few shallow teeth. Each flowering shoot ends in a thin stalk that forks in two, each fork holding one nodding, pink or whitish, funnel-shaped flower.
Habitat
Open forest, forest edges and peat bogs, from low elevations up to the alpine. In the Oregon and Washington Cascades it is common under Douglas-fir in young and old stands alike, and it tolerates anything from deep shade to full sun.
Sightings in the forest
487 research-grade sightings in Mt. Hood National Forest on iNaturalist, most recently on November 2, 2026. See them on iNaturalist →