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creamy ladies' tresses, creamy lady's tresses, western ladies'-tresses

Habit Plants 15–60 cm.
Roots

few–several, spreading to descending, tuberous, mostly to 1 cm diam.

Leaves

persisting through anthesis or fugaceous, basal, often on proximal portion of stem, ascending, linear to linear-lanceolate, linear-oblanceolate, oblanceolate or elliptic, to 34 × 3.5 cm.

Spikes

usually very tightly spiraled, rarely loosely spiraled, usually 3 flowers per cycle of spiral;

rachis glabrous to sparsely pubescent, trichomes less (usually much less) than 0.18 mm, capitate glands often sessile.

Flowers

ascending, creamy to markedly yellowish, slenderly tubular;

sepals connate at base, 4.6–11 mm, apex reflexed-spreading;

petals linear-lanceolate to linear-oblanceolate, apex reflexed-spreading, obtuse to subacute or subemarginate;

lip lance-ovate to lanceolate, 4–9.5 × 1.9–4.3 mm, apex recurved less than to scarcely more than apices of sepals and petals, only slightly or not at all dilated, with subapical dense cushion of peg-shaped trichomes on adaxial surface;

veins few to several, branches wide-spreading or often parallel;

viscidia linear to linear-elliptic;

ovary mostly 2–7.5 mm.

Seeds

monoembryonic.

2n

= 44 [66].

Spiranthes porrifolia

Phenology Flowering May–Aug.
Habitat Moist to wet riparian meadows, stream banks, marshes, fens, seeping banks
Elevation 100–2600 m (300–8500 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA; ID; NV; OR; WA
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Source FNA vol. 26.
Parent taxa Orchidaceae > subfam. Orchidoideae > tribe Cranichideae > subtribe Spiranthinae > Spiranthes
Sibling taxa
S. brevilabris, S. casei, S. cernua, S. delitescens, S. diluvialis, S. eatonii, S. floridana, S. infernalis, S. lacera, S. laciniata, S. longilabris, S. lucida, S. magnicamporum, S. ochroleuca, S. odorata, S. ovalis, S. parksii, S. praecox, S. romanzoffiana, S. torta, S. tuberosa, S. vernalis
Synonyms S. romanzoffiana var. porrifolia
Name authority Lindley: Gen. Sp. Orchid. Pl., 467. (1840)
Web links