Purple Fringed Orchid

Plants 35–105 cm. Leaves 2–5, spreading to ascending, scattered along stem, gradually reduced to bracts distally; blade lanceolate, elliptic, oblong-elliptic, or oblance-oblong, 7–27 × 1.2–5 cm. Spikes lax to dense. Flowers resupinate, showy, rose-purple; lateral sepals somewhat reflexed; petals oblong-linear to spatulate, distally crenate to entire; lip descending to somewhat porrect, deeply 3-lobed, without basal thickening, 11–20 × 12–23 mm, distal margins of lobes dentate-lacerate, rarely nearly entire, lateral lobes narrowly cuneate, middle lobe broadly cuneate-flabellate, emarginate to 2-fid; spur clavate, 20–30 mm; rostellum lobes directed forward, spreading, angular; pollinaria straight to geniculate; pollinia directed forward; viscidia orbiculate; ovary slender, 13–23 mm.

Ala., Ark., Del., Ga., Ill., Ind., Ky., Md., Miss., Mo., N.J., N.C., Ohio, Pa., S.C., Tenn., Va., W.Va.

Flowering (Jun--)Jul--Aug(--Oct).

Alluvial forests, wet wooded flats, stream banks, seeping slopes, marshes, moist prairies, old fields and pastures, ditches, thickets; 0--800m.

Habenaria peramoena A. Gray, Amer. J. Sci. Arts 38: 310. 1840

Platanthera peramoena, the purple fringeless orchid, is a species of flowering plant in the orchid family. It is native to the Eastern United States, where it is found from the Mid-Atlantic states, the Ohio Valley and the Ozark Mountains. Its natural habitat is moist forests, marshes, and on streambanks.

It produces purple flowers in the summer. The moth Hemaris thysbe is considered its main pollinator.