About 5 species in temperate Eurasia. They are herbaceous perennials spreading by slender underground rhizomes. Stems erect, solitary, unbranched, with a whorl of four or more leaves just below the single terminal flower which has four to six narrow sepals and the same number of even narrower petals. The four to ten stamens sometimes have a long filamentous appendage at the tip of the anther. The fruit is a four-celled fleshy capsule, usually black.

Uses

Unassuming plants of quiet charm for a shady place on the rock garden. They prefer a humus-rich soil and are easily propagated by division of the rhizome or seed when ripe. Only P. quadrifolia is at all widely grown.

a, P. quadrifolia; b, Daiswa, violacea - see Vol. One;