Platanthera obtusata (Banks ex Pursh) Lindl. 1835 Photo by Jim Fowler and his P-Base Orchid North American Orchid Website

Common Name The Blunt Leafed Platanthera - Blunt Leafed Rein Orchis

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in Norway, Sweden, Artic Russia, Siberia, Aluetians, Alaska, Northwest Territories, Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfounland, Labrador, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Minnesota, Wisconson, Michigan, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusets and New York as aminiature to medium sized, cold growing terrestrial orchid with 1 basal, [forma foliosa has multiple leaves decreasing in size upward], linear-oblanceolate, [in forma collectanea single, oval-ovate, nearly equalling the height of the inflorescence] blunt apically, green leaf that blooms in the summer on a terminal, erect, loose, 9 to 15 flowered [in forma collectanea fewer denser flowered, shorter inflorescence] inflorescence.

Found rarely in the south in mixed woodlands, headlands and gravel as forma obtusata and farther north commonly in tundra and heaths as the shorter fewer flowered forma collectanea

Synonyms Habenaria obtusata (Banks ex Pursh) Richardson 1823; Habenaria obtusata var. collectanea Fernald 1926; Lysiella obtusata (Banks ex Pursh) Rydb. 1900; Lysiella obtusata subsp. oligantha (Turcz.) Tolm.1963; *Orchis obtusata Banks ex Pursh 1813; Platanthera obtusata f. collectanea (Fernald) P.M.Br.1995; Platanthera obtusata f. foliosa P.M.Br. 1995; Platanthera obtusata subsp. oligantha (Turcz.) Hultén 1943; Platanthera obtusata var. collectanea (Fernald) W.J.Schrenk 1977; Platanthera oligantha Turcz 1854; Platanthera parvula Schltr. 1918

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; AOS Bulletin Vol 69 No 11 2000 photo; Wild Orchids of Pacific Northwest and Canadian Rockies PM Brown 2006

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