Rhizomes 3-8 × 1 cm, decaying every year. Stems 2-9 dm, white-woolly when young, 1-3 deciduous bracts below proximal leaf whorl. Leaf blades sessile or short-petiolate, becoming purple-tinged basally in fruit, 5-9(-12) in proximal whorl, 6-16 × 1.5-5 cm, 3(-5) in distal whorl, 2.5-5 × 1.5-4 cm. Tepals yellowish green, 6-10 mm. Fruits (5-)8-10(-14) mm diam. Seeds 3 mm. 2n = 14. Flowering late spring. Moist slopes, mesic woods; 0--1600 m; N.B., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que.; Ala., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Ky., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Miss., Mo., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Pa., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis. The rhizome of Medeola virginiana has the taste and odor of cucumber and is edible. The whorled leaves look like those of the orchid Isotria verticillata. The Iroquois of eastern North America used M. virginiana as an anticonvulsive, pediatric aid (D. E. Moerman 1986).
Rhizome 3-8 cm, succulent, cucumber-flavored; stem erect, 3-7 dm, ±invested when young with flocculent wool which persists about the lf-bases; lower lvs 5-11 per whorl, oblong-oblanceolate, 6-12 cm, a fourth or a third as wide, acuminate at both ends; upper lvs normally 3 per whorl, ovate, 3-6 cm, half to two-thirds as wide, acuminate, becoming bright red at the more rounded base; umbel 3-9-fld; pedicels spreading or deflexed, 15-25 mm, becoming red; tep 7 mm; berry dark purple or black; 2n=14. Rich woods; N.S. and Que. to Mich. and se. Wis., s. to Va. and n. Mo., and in the mts. to Ga. and Ala.; also in Fla. and reputedly se. La. May-July.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.