General: Perennial herb from slender rhizomes and thickened roots; stems 20-40 cm tall, with bracts, lacking leaves, glandular-hairy.
Leaves: In a basal cluster, the stalks 5-20 mm long, the blades usually oblong-elliptic, 3-7 cm long, dark green, usually blotched with white along midvein or white-veined.
Flowers: Inflorescence a terminal, 1-sided and often spiraled, bracted, spikelike raceme, the flowers greenish-white, small; sepals 1-veined, lateral sepals about 5 mm long, the upper sepal 6-11 mm long, joined with lateral petals to form a hood over the lip; lip 5-7 mm long, pouchlike, beaked; column 3-5 mm long.
Fruits: Capsules, ascending to erect, about 10 mm long.
Dry to moist, mossy forests in the lowland, steppe and montane zones; common throughout BC, south of 56 degrees N; N to AK, E to PQ, NB and NS and S to ME, MI, WI, NE, NM, AZ and CA.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
A shade-tolerant, submontane to subalpine, transcontinental North American forb. Occurs on moderately dry to fresh, nitrogen-poor soils within boreal, temperate, and cool mesothermal climates. Common in coniferous forests on water-shedding sites; on nutrient-rich sites it inhabits decaying wood. Usually associated with Hylocomium splendens, Pleurozium schreberi, Rhytidiadelphus loreus, and Rhytidiopsis robusta. An oxylophytic species characteristic of Mor humus forms.
