General: Perennial herb, from a few fleshy-tuberous roots; stems 10-30 cm tall, without leaves.
Leaves: Single basal leaf, oblanceolate to elliptic or egg-shaped, 5-15 cm long, 1-5 cm wide, blunt-tipped, long-tapering to base.
Flowers: Inflorescence a terminal, loosely 3- to 15-flowered spike, bracted; flower bracts green and up to 15 mm long below, yellowish and much reduced above; flower stalks 1-5 mm long; flowers pale green to yellow-green, sometimes the lip or petals whitish; lower sepals 4-6 mm long, elliptic-lanceolate, somewhat bent back, the upper sepal kidney-shaped to nearly round, 3-4 mm long, somewhat erect, arching over column; petals broadly lanceolate, curved upward, contacting the upper sepal; lip 5-10 mm long, lance-linear, greenish-white, hanging downward with slightly up-curved tip; spur slender, pointed, tapering from base, somewhat curving, as long as lip; column 2-3.5 mm long.
Fruits: Capsules, erect, ellipsoid, to 10 mm long.
Moist to wet forests, bogs, swamps and streambanks in the montane zone; infrequent throughout BC, except absent from the coast; N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to ME, MA, NY, MI, WI, MN, CO, UT, ID and OR.
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)
