Epilobium angustifolium
Fireweed

Family: Onagraceae (Evening Primrose family)

Photo taken in Icicle Canyon, partially shaded slope, 7 year old burn

Flowers:

flowers in elongate racemes, usually greater than 15 flowered; petals pink-purple; stigma 4-lobed, style greater than the 8 stamens; non-glandular ovary

Fruit:

1 to 3 mm, fusiform, tufted with hair

Leaves:

10 to 20 cm long

Plant:

1 to 2 meters tall, rhizomatous. Young shoots were peeled and eaten raw the Okanagon and Thompson. They were also eaten boiled or steamed by the Thompson.

Habitat:

lowland to middle elevations in the mountains, often on burned areas

Distribution of species:

circumboreal- Alaska to California, east to the Atlantic coast and in Eurasia

Distribution of genus:

171 species: worldwide except in the tropics and deserts