ELEPHANTHEAD 
Pedicularis groenlandica Retz 
Elephanthead loves wet meadows and the bordets of lakes and 
streams. It prefers the region about timberline, and in sedgy upland 
swampy places it supplies masses of rich color. Flowers, stems, and 
leaves are often of almost the same tone. The curious flower tesembles 
an elephant’s head with the trunk raised. 
This plant and a similar one growing in California have been te- 
ferred by a few botanists to a distinct genus, appropriately named 
Elephantella, but the two species agtee essentially in their flower 
structute with other members of the genus Pedicularis. 
This representative member of the Figwort Family is found in 
Greenland and Labrador, and from the mountains of New Mexico 
and California northward to Alaska. 
It grew in many places in the Ptarmigan Valley, fifteen miles by 
trail north from Lake Louise, Alberta, at an altitude of 6,000 feet, 
where this specimen was obtained. 
PLATE 373 
