Home Orchidaceae Platanthera

Platanthera leucophaea (Nutt.) Lindl.

Common Name: PRAIRIE FRINGED ORCHID
Coefficient of Conservatism: 10
Coefficient of Wetness: -3
Wetness Index: FACW
Physiognomy: Nt P-Forb
Status: E

Habenaria leucophaea of Michigan Flora.

Open fens (even on floating sedge mats), wet prairies and other wet open sites; wet successional fields with Cornus near Lake Erie. Very rare now, but there is good evidence that it was formerly a more frequent plant. It was gathered several times during the First Survey in 1838, and was recorded as "frequent" on Belle Isle (Wayne Co.) as late as the beginning of the 20th century.(Farwell, 1901). The somewhat isolated occurrence at the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula was at Mud Lake bog, most specifically "margin of Mud Lake" where it was collected from 1917 to 1924, and apparently not since. 

A plant with peloric flowers (regular, rather than bilaterally symmetrical) was collected on Belle Isle (Wayne Co.) in 1884 (A. B. Lyons, MICH). Rare hybrids with Platanthera lacera (P. × hollandiae Catling & Brownell) and P. psycodes (P. × reznicekii Catling, Brownell & G. Allen) are known from southern Ontario and could occur in Michigan

A. Strouse

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Counties
Arenac
Bay
Berrien
Calhoun
Cheboygan
Clinton
Eaton
Genesee
Gratiot
Huron
Ingham
Jackson
Kalamazoo
Livingston
Monroe
Oakland
Saginaw
St. Clair
Tuscola
Washtenaw
Wayne

Citation:
MICHIGAN FLORA ONLINE. A. A. Reznicek, E. G. Voss, & B. S. Walters. February 2011. University of Michigan. Web. March, 16, 2025
https://lsa-miflora-p.lsait.lsa.umich.edu/#/record/1833