Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Erect, deciduous herbs.

Stems: Stems arising from subterranean tubers, 1.5–6 dm long, glabrous, completely enclosed at base by 2–3 sheathing cataphylls, these erect, tubular, slightly flaring at apex, 1.5–3 cm long.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades lanceolate to ovate, 4–12(–20) cm long, 1–3(–4) cm wide, midrib impressed on upper surface, slightly raised on lower surface. Surfaces pale green throughout; blades membranous. Margins entire, sheath 1–5 cm long. Veins parallel. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in open spikes subtended by a series of linear lanceolate foliaceous bracts 2.5–4 cm long, each flower subtended by a conspicuous bract. Flowers bisexual (perfect), greenish yellow. Sepals: dorsal sepal appressed to column, hooded, obovate, 2.5–3.5 mm long, lateral sepals erect, elliptic, 3–3.5 mm long. Corolla Lateral petals somewhat smaller and enclosed by sepals, erect or inflexed toward column, irregularly ovate, 2–2.5 mm long, apex slightly thickened, fleshy, and ligulate; labellum ligulate, ca. 3 mm long, with a long spur at base 3–5 mm long. Stamen 1, adnate to and surrounding the style forming a column. Column erect. Ovary inferior, 3-carpellate; rostellum relatively broad, forming a transverse ridge beneath anther cells; stigma large, deeply concave, unlobed.

Fruit: Capsules ellipsoid; 1–1.5 cm long.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Usually terrestrial in open or shaded sites on bog hummocks and in wet forest surrounding bogs; sometimes in wet forest not near bogs; and rarely (on Maui) in mesic forest and subalpine shrubland.

Elevation Range: 600–1830 m.