Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Wistar's coralroot

WISTAR'S CORALROOT

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Corallorhiza wisteriana Conrad

Riley County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 4-18 inches

Family: Orchidaceae - Orchid Family

Flowering Period: April, May

Also Called:

Spring coralroot.

Stems:

Plants without chlorophyll, glabrous; from coral-like rhizomes. Stems yellow to reddish purple, simple, not bulbous-based; sheathing bracts 2-4.

Leaves:

Absent

Inflorescences:

Terminal racemes, lax, 2-25-flowered; bracts lanceolate to triangular, .04 to .12 inch long, .01 to .04 inch wide, apex acute.

Flowers:

Pedicels .04 to .12 inch; flowers purplish brown or yellow, often green distally, perianth open; sepals and petals connivent and forming hood over column; sepals 3, lanceolate; lateral sepals curved upward and forward, .18 to .4 inch; petals 3, broadly lanceolate, .16 to .28 inch; lower petal modified as lip that is different from other petals; lip white, often purple-spotted, ovate to round, margins erose-denticulate to nearly entire, tip purple.

Fruits:

Capsules, ellipsoid to obovoid, .25 to .5 inch, pendent; seeds numerous.

Habitat:

Moist, often rocky, oak-hickory forests and woodlands

Distribution:

East 1/3 of Kansas

Comments:

Corallorhiza, coral + root, alludes to the coral-like rhizomes. wisteriana, is for Caspar Wistar, American physician and author. Orchidaceae is one of the largest families of flowering plants. Orchid seeds are dust-like and dispersed by wind. They contain no endosperm, so nutrients provided by a mycorrhizal fungus are required for germination.

Wistar's coralroot