Platanthera dilatata (White Bog Orchid) - photos and description
General: Stout-stemmed orchid with an erect growth habit. Plant glabrous. Its dazzling-white flowers makes it quite a striking plant.
Flowers: Flowers with a long lip and with the lateral petals and upper sepal forming a hood over the column. Flowers are long spurred and have a spicy fragrance. Flower spike measured to 15 cm long. We measured flowers to be 18 mm long, lip to 7 mm long.
Leaves: Leaves alternate, linear-lanceolate, clasp the stem. The leaves are reduced in size upwards, becoming linear bracts. The leaf highlighted in the photo above was 9 cm long by 9 mm wide.
Height: Height listed in Budd's Flora to 60 cm, we measured plants to 42 cm tall.
Habitat: Open bogs and fens in the boreal forest.
Abundance: Rare, ranked as an S3 (as of 2021) by the Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre.
Origin: Native.
When and where photographed: Photographs taken June 30th and July 1st, pitcher plant bog in the Nisbet provincial forest about 350 km north of Regina, SK, and July 4th, in a forest fen, Duck Mountain provincial park, 300 km northeast of our home in Regina, SK.