Sticky false asphodel, tofieldie glutineuse

Narthecium glutinosum Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Amer. 1: 210. 1803; Tofieldia glutinosa (Michaux) Persoon; T. racemosa (Walter) Britton, Sterns & Poggenburg var. glutinosa (Michaux) H. E. Ahles

Stems leafless, or with 1–3 leaves toward base, 5–50 cm, glandular below inflorescence, glands dome-shaped to conical, 1/2–2 times longer than wide, rarely glandular-pubescent with coarse cylindrical hairs. Leaf blades to 30 cm × 6 mm. Inflorescences forming cylindric-ovate spikelike heads, 3–30-flowered, sometimes interrupted or open, 1–6.5 cm, glandular-pubescent; bracts subtending pedicel in cluster; bracteoles forming ascending, truncate, or shallowly 3-lobed involucre around pedicel, lobes spreading, occasionally cleft from proximal 1/3 to base, narrow, usually glabrous, margins usually entire or nearly so, apex rounded to acute. Flowers borne in clusters of 3, proximal sometimes remote; perianth white or yellowish; tepals 3.8–5 mm, inner series slightly longer; stamens 2.8–4 mm; ovary ellipsoid, tapering gradually to style base; styles distinct, 0.6–1.5 mm; pedicel 1–9 mm. Capsules ovoid to broadly ellipsoid, 3.5–7.5 mm, clearly longer than tepals and not enclosed by them, chartaceous, easily ruptured. Seeds reddish brown, ca. 1 mm; appendages 2, one at each end of seed, one contorted, 1–4 times longer than seed, other at opposite end, much shorter; coat absent.

Flowering summer. Marshes, wet meadows, calcareous soil; 0--2100 m; St. Pierre and Miquelon; Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.W.T., N.S., Ont., Que., Sask., Yukon; Alaska, Ill., Ind., Maine, Mich., Minn., N.H., N.Y., N.C., N.Dak., Ohio, Oreg., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.

Hybrids between Triantha glutinosa and T. racemosa occur in Burlington County, New Jersey; see note under T. racemosa. On the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia, there appears to be some evidence of hybridization between T. glutinosa and the two subspecies of T. occidentalis that occur there.