The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Pedicularis racemosa
Also called Leafy Lousewort, Sickletop Betony, Parrot's Beak
Sickletop lousewort (Pedicularis racemosa) is a hemiparasitic perennial herb from western North American coniferous forests, grown mainly as a wild or native-garden plant. Its key requirement is a host-friendly, cool, shaded site.
Pedicularis racemosa is a species of flowering plant in the family Orobanchaceae known by the common names sickletop lousewort and leafy lousewort. It is native to western North America, where it grows in coniferous forests. This is a perennial herb producing several stems up to 80 centimetres (31 in) tall, greenish to dark red in color. The leaves are up to 10 centimetres (4 in) long, linear in shape and lined with teeth. The inflorescence is a small raceme of flowers occupying the top of the stem. Each white to light purple or yellow flower is up to 1.6 centimetres (2⁄3 in) long and is divided into a curved or coiled beak-like upper lip and a wide three-lobed lower lip. The fruit is a capsule over a centimeter in length containing smooth seeds.
Pedicularis asplenifolia · Little elephantshead · Pedicularis bhutanomuscoides · Bracted lousewort · Pedicularis cacuminidenta · Pedicularis caeruleoalbescens · Canadian lousewort · Dwarf lousewort · Coiled lousewort · Arctic Hairy Lousewort · Indian warrior · Pedicularis dhurensis
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pedicularis racemosa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
