Herbs, terrestrial. Roots 1-2 mm wide, sometimes with wider nodular tuberoids, frequently rather brittle. Leaves 1-3 on vegetative plants, 1(-2) centrally on flowering stems, sessile; blade oblong-lanceolate or elliptic-oblong. Inflorescences terminal,1-3-flowered; floral bracts leaflike. Flowers resupinate, erect, sessile; sepals olive-green, brown, or maroon, linear-lanceolate, apex acuminate; petals rose-pink to white, spatulate or oblanceolate, usually forming tube with lip; lip rose-pink to white, with rose or purple veins, oblanceolate, 3-lobed, middle lobe medially winged or tuberculate, central keel grooved from base to 3/4 its length; column free, white, apex lacerate, truncate; anther terminal, hinged; pollinia 2, without viscidium, soft, mealy; pollen grains in tetrads. Fruits capsules, erect, cylindric.

Authors of some neotropical floras have questioned the separation of Cleistes from Pogonia; most recent North American authors have followed O. Ames (1905-1922) in recognizing Cleistes, and we prefer to do the same until a detailed study suggests otherwise. The two North American species can reproduce asexually by root shoots.

Sep and lateral pet evidently unlike, the sep slender, widely spreading or distally recurved, the pet directed forward, close together over the lip; lip rather broad, ±ovate in outline, obscurely 3-lobed, the long low lateral lobes enfolding the column, the terminal lobe short, triangular; lip crested with a median ridge and with a ridged and papillate summit; column with a deflexed terminal anther; pollinia 2; perennial from a cluster of fleshy-fibrous roots, the erect stem-bearing 1 or 2 sheathing scales toward the base and a single (2) foliage lf near or above the middle; fl solitary, rarely 2. 25, W. Hemisphere, mainly trop

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.