Little elephant's head lousewort facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Little elephant's head lousewort
Scientific classification

The Pedicularis attollens is a beautiful flowering plant often called the little elephant's head. It gets this fun name because its flowers look a bit like tiny elephant heads with long trunks! This plant belongs to the Orobanchaceae family.

You can find the little elephant's head growing naturally in Oregon and California. It loves moist, mountainous areas, especially wet places like meadows and bogs.

What is the Little Elephant's Head?

This plant is a perennial herb, which means it's a plant that lives for more than two years and has soft, green stems instead of woody ones. It can grow up to about 60 centimeters (24 inches) tall.

The plant has one or more stems that grow from a special underground part called a caudex. Its leaves are quite unique; they look like combs because they are divided into many narrow, finger-like parts.

How Does It Look?

At the very top of the stem, you'll find the plant's flowers arranged in a cluster called a raceme. Each flower is quite small, less than 1 centimeter (about 0.4 inches) long.

The flowers are usually pink or purplish, and they often have darker stripes. They have a special shape: an upper lip that curves like a tiny trunk and a lower lip with three small lobes. The parts that protect the flower buds, called sepals, and the small leaf-like structures between the flowers, called bracts, are often covered in soft, woolly hairs.

Life Cycle and Reproduction

After the flowers bloom, the plant produces a fruit called a capsule. This capsule can be up to 1 centimeter (about 0.4 inches) long. Inside the capsule are the plant's seeds. These seeds have cool, net-like patterns on their surfaces.

See Also

• Pedicularis