Chamaenerion latifolium

{{short description|Species of flowering plant in the willowherb family Onagraceae}}

{{speciesbox

|image = Chamerion latifolium RHu 02.JPG

|genus = Chamaenerion

|species = latifolium

|authority = (L.) Sweet

|synonyms =

{{Specieslist

|Epilobium latifolium|L.

|Chamerion latifolium|(L.) Holub

}}

|synonyms_ref = {{citation |title=Chamaenerion latifolium (L.) Sweet |website=Tropicos |publisher=Missouri Botanical Garden |url=http://www.tropicos.org/Name/23201028 |accessdate=2017-03-03}}

}}

Chamaenerion latifolium (formerly Epilobium latifolium, also called Chamerion latifolium){{cite web| url=http://biology.burke.washington.edu/herbarium/waflora/checklist.php?Taxon=Chamerion%20angustifolium%20ssp.%20circumvagum&ID=4961 |title=Chamerion angustifolium (L.) Holub ssp. circumvagum (Mosquin) Hoch [JPM2]|work=Washington Flora Checklist |publisher=University of Washington Herbarium, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture |accessdate=2012-10-05}} is a species of flowering plant in the evening primrose family known by the English common names dwarf fireweed{{PLANTS|id=CHLA13|taxon=Chamerion latifolium|accessdate=9 April 2016}} and river beauty willowherb. It has a circumboreal distribution, appearing throughout the northern regions of the Northern Hemisphere, including alpine, sub-Arctic, and Arctic areas such as snowmelt-flooded gravel bars and talus, in a wide range of elevations.[https://www.mun.ca/biology/delta/arcticf/_ca/www/onepla.htm Flora of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605183620/http://www.mun.ca/biology/delta/arcticf/_ca/www/onepla.htm |date=June 5, 2011 }} This is a perennial herb growing in clumps of leaves variable in size, shape, and texture above a woody caudex. The leaves are 1 to 10 centimeters long, lance-shaped to oval, pointed or rounded at the tips, and hairy to hairless and waxy. The inflorescence is a rough-haired raceme of nodding flowers with bright to deep pink, and occasionally white, petals up to 3 centimeters long. Behind the opened petals are pointed sepals. The fruit is an elongated capsule which may exceed 10 centimeters in length.

In the Arctic, this plant provides valuable nutrition for the Inuit, who eat the leaves raw, boiled with fat, or steeped in water for tea, the flowers and fruits raw, and as a salad with meals of seal and walrus blubber.[http://herb.umd.umich.edu/herb/search.pl?searchstring=Chamerion+latifolium Ethnobotany] The leaves and shoots are edible,{{Cite book|last=Reiner|first=Ralph E.|title=Introducing the Flowering Beauty of Glacier National Park and the Majestic High Rockies|publisher=Glacier Park, Inc.|year=1969|pages=70}} tasting much like spinach, and is also known in the Canadian tundra as River Beauty.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

It is the national flower of Greenland[https://www.grida.no/resources/4199 The national flower of Greenland: Dwarf fireweed] with the Greenlandic name niviarsiaq ("young girl").

File:Chamerion latifolium upernavik 2007-08-06 2.jpg