E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

General:
Perennial herb from tuberous, spindle-shaped stem-bases, with a few fibrous roots; stems 35-80 (100) cm tall, stout, leafy.

Leaves:
Lowest oblong-elliptic, 3-10 cm long, over 1/3 as wide, tips rounded to blunt, the other leaves 5-15 cm long, lanceolate, tips pointed, reducing into bracts above, the leaves generally widely diverging from stem.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a slender, open spike, the flowers small, green, usually lightly scented, bracted, the bracts of the lower flowers 2-5 cm long, leaflike, much reduced in upper flowers; lateral sepals 4-6 mm long, broadly lanceolate, thin, 3-veined, spreading, the upper sepal broadly egg-shaped, slightly hooded at tip, 3-5 mm long; petals lanceolate to egg-shaped, fleshy, often purplish-tinged, asymmetric, in close contact with upper sepal, forming a hood; lip narrowly oblong or linear, 5-8 mm long; spur generally much shorter than lip but sometimes nearly as long, inflated, scrotum- or sac-shaped, only slightly, if at all curved; column short and thick, about 2 mm long.

Fruits:
Capsules, erect, to 15 mm long.

Notes:
Although spurs of P. stricta are generally much shorter than the lips, many plants from Vancouver Island populations have scrotum-like spurs nearly as long as their linear lips. Occasionally, spurs much longer than the lips are found - such plants probably are hybrids between P. stricta and P. dilatata var. leuchostachys. Plants referred to P. gracilis are included within the range of variation of P. stricta - they are florally similar to slender-spurred extremes of P. stricta and differ only in reduced leaves.