Pink pinwheels is a small perennial wildflower, with several flowering stems arising 15-60 cm from basal leaves. The stems are somewhat glandular-pubescent. The several basal leaves are compound pinnate, with 11-19 leaflets, and they measure up to 20 cm long. The leaflets may be ovate with shallow teeth, to deeply parted, depending on the variety. The stem leaves are reduced in size upwards on the stem.
The pink, 5 petaled flowers tend to be in terminal clusters. Each flower is about the size of a nickel. The calyx is usually reddish- or purplish-tinged and cup-shaped. The 5 petals are white to deep pink with pink or reddish lines. Individual petals are are obovate or triangular, with the point at attachment. The petals range from 2.5-6 mm long. There are up to 25 pistils.
Horkelia, Pink Pinwheels: (ssp. capitata) - Leaflets broadly ovate to obovate in shape with margins toothed or lobed less than half their length. Petals greater than 4 mm long. Herbage gray-green. Range is northwestern Idaho, the Blue Mts. of Washington and Idaho, and southward to the Steens Mt. and northeastern California and northwestern Nevada.
Tawny Horkelia: (ssp. fusca) - Leaflets typically divided half their length into narrow, linear segments. Herbage greenish in appearance, not grayish hairy. Range is Kittitas and Klickitat Counties in Washington south to Wasco County, OR.
Smallflower Horkelia, Small-flowered Horkelia: (ssp. parviflora) - Leaflets wedge-oblanceolate to wedge-obovate in shape with margins toothed or lobed less than half their length. Petals typically less than 4 mm long. Herbage gray-green above, greener below and often glandular. Found along the eastern edge of the Cascade Mts.
Littlehead Horkelia, Woolly-leaf Horkelia: (ssp. pseudocapitata) - Leaflets wedge-oblanceolate to wedge-obovate in shape with margins toothed or lobed less than half their length. Petals typically less than 4 mm long. Herbage gray-green above and below and usually not glandular. If glandular, then only slightly so. Found across much of central and eastern Oregon and south-central and south-eastern Washington.
Pink pinwheels are found in damp meadows, open forests, on open prairies, and on rocky slopes.
Pink pinwheels are found from central Washington south through eastern Oregon to the Sierra Nevada of California, and eastward to Idaho, western Wyoming, and Northern Nevada.
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
