Flower:

Spidery rounded cluster of 10 to 40 flowers on slender stalks at the end of branching stems. Flowers are white, about 1/3 inch across with 5 oval petals and 5 to 10 long white stamens surrounding the small green round ovary in the center. The next season's bloom is formed in late summer and appears as a large scaly bud at the of the evergreen terminals (see more photos below). The brown bud scales fall away from the floral base the next spring when the flowers bloom.

Leaves:

Leaves are evergreen into 2nd year, simple, alternate, narrow to broader and oblong, tapered or blunt at ends, 1 to 2¼ inches long, ¼ to 2/3 inch wide, on a short stalk. The upper surface is dark green, smooth to sparsely hairy, with a leathery texture; the underside is woolly white the first year becoming copper colored the next year. Leaf edges are smooth and rolled under. Stems are upright; new stems densely covered with coppery hairs that gray by second year and persist for number of years. The bark on old wood is gray.

Notes:

Of its three contemporary, and of similar habit, evergreen wetland shrubs—Chamaedaphne calyculata, Kalmia polifolia and Andromeda glaucophylla?you don't always have to slog into a bog to see this one. Labrador Tea is quite common throughout the northeastern third of Minnesota—I've seen it along many lakeshores right in forest service campgrounds or lakeside roads in the Arrowhead. It does do best in sphagnum bogs however, forming colonies via rooting stems or rhizomes in the sphagnum. Formerly known as Ledum groenlandicum, I, not being a trained taxonimist and not read the journals, have always questioned why it was not in the Rhodoendron genus. Apparently it now is.