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.
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)
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.