Range:
Habitat: terrestrial in moist woodlands.
Common name: Whorled Pogonia
Blooming: Late March to early April in Florida
Comments: while this species is reasonably common
in states to the north of Florida, within Florida it is perhaps the rarest orchid
of all, with no more than a few dozen plants known in all of Florida.
It has been so rare that many were doubting the accuracy of the reports of its existence in Florida until a few decades ago. In fact, Dr. Carlyle Luer, when writing his seminal work, The Native Orchids of Florida, had not had the privilege of seeing this orchid in Florida, having instead to rely on photographs of specimens taken in North Carolina. It has, during the ensuing years, been confirmed again as occurring in Florida. Vouchered specimens exist in two herbaria of plants from both Gadsden County and Washington County. I was given the opportunity of visiting one of these sites recently. Following the instructions given, it still took several hours to discover the plants, my son spotting the first one. A survey of the area indicated about 15 plants, only one in bloom, but at least one and possibly two others looked like they may have had buds on them that had since blasted or been otherwise knocked off (or perhaps they had earlier contained flowers that had not successfully been pollinated).
The above-ground portion of the plant consists of a purplish stem, fading to light green just beneath the whorl of five light green leaves, which is a rather unusual anatomical configuration for an orchid. Seedlings only have their leaves, while a mature plant will have a flower nestled in the center of these. At flowering time, the leaves are just beginning to grow, forming a small "jester's collar" around the flower. In the following weeks after flowering, the leaves will grow to several times their present length. The flower bears a passing resemblance to their cousin, Cleistes bifaria, but the sepals, by contrast, spread widely above and below the flower. The sepals are brown to green, the petals are a lovely lime green, and the lip is white with a green crest running down the center and striated brown on the side lobes. We detected a very slight vanilla-like fragrance from the flower.
 plant growth habit |
 flower |