Flower:

Usually 1, occasionally 2, hanging, stalked flowers arising from most leaf axils. Each bell-shaped flower is ¼ to about 1/3 inch long with 6 narrow lobes that are flaring or curled back (recurved) only at the tips. Flower color varies greatly, from nearly white to deep maroon, usually with darker rose-purple spots or streaks. 6 stamens and a weakly 3-lobed style are inside the tube. The flowers are typically hidden under the leaves and may go unseen. Flower stalks are up to ¾ inch long, slender, hairy, and arching.

Leaves and stems:

Leaves are 2 to 4 inches long, ¾ to 1¾ inches wide, toothless, lance-oblong to narrowly egg-shaped with a sharply pointed tip, several prominent parallel veins, and a rounded base. Surfaces are green and hairless.

Leaf edges are fringed with short hairs. Leaves are stalkless to weakly clasping the stem. The stem is variably covered in short hairs, sometimes smooth at the base, unbranched or few branched, erect in the lower plant often arching above, and often zig-zags some between the alternately attached leaves. Plants can form loose colonies from slender rhizomes.

Fruit:

Fruit is a round to oval berry ¼ to 1/3 inch in diameter that ripens to red or purple and contains many seeds.

Notes:

Rose Twisted-stalk, formerly known as Streptopus roseus, is found in rich woodlands and forests in about two-thirds of Minnesota. At first glance it may be mistaken for one of the Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum) species, which also have 6-parted dangling flowers from leaf axils and stalkless leaves, but also have 2 or more flowers in a cluster, pale greenish yellow flowers with petals fused nearly to the tip, blue-black fruit, and do not have a fringe of hairs around leaf edges. Also similar is Clasping-leaved Twisted-stalk (Streptopus amplexifolius), which is a larger plant, hairless, more freely branched, with greenish yellow petals that are more widely spreading. There are 3 or 4 varieties of S. lanceolatus, though these are not universally agreed upon, distinguished by rhizome characteristics and the density of hairs around leaf edges; var. longipes with long rhizomes would be found in Minnesota.