FALL CORALROOT
File Size: 90 KB
 
Corallorhiza odontorhiza   (Willd. ) Poir.
Linn County, Kansas
Perennial
Height: 2.5-16 inches
Family: Orchidaceae - Orchid Family
Flowering Period:   August, September,October
Also Called: Late coralroot, small-flower coralroot.
Stems: Erect, greenish yellow to purplish brown, simple; bulbous-based; sheathing bracts 2-4.
Leaves: Absent
Inflorescences: Racemes, terminal, lax, 5-26-flowered, 1 to 16 inches; bracts oblong to lanceolate, .04 to .08 inch long, .02 to 03 inch wide, apex acute to obtuse. Pedicels .04 to .14 inch long.
Flowers: Upside down; pink, purple, or reddish brown; perianth open or closed; sepals 3, broadly lanceolate; lateral sepals .12 to .18 inch; petals 3, distinct, broadly lanceolate, .1 to .16 inch, lower petal modified as lip; lip white, often purple-spotted, ovate to round, margins entire or finely erose; sepals and petals connivent and forming a hood over the column; stamens usually 1-2, fused to style and stigmas to form a column subtended by lip; column white basally, apex often purple; pistil 1; stigmas usually 3-lobed, modified into a beak near tip of column; cleistogamous flowers sometimes present.
Fruits: Capsules, pendent, ellipsoid, .25 to .3 inch; seeds numerous.
Habitat: Oak-hickory woodlands
Distribution: East 1/5 of Kansas
Origin: Native
Comments: Plants without chlorophyll or appearing so, glabrous; from coral-like rhizomes. The flowers and foliage are inconspicuous, and this species frequently is collected after the flowers are past their prime and the fruits have begun to enlarge. Corallorhiza coral and root, alluding to the coral-like rhizomes and odontorhiza tooth and root. Kansas plants are var. odontorhiza.
Fall coralroot inflorescence
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Linn County, Kansas
Fall coralroot
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Linn County, Kansas
Fall coralroot
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Linn County, Kansas
Fall coralroot
64 KB
Linn County, Kansas