Inflorescences lax, slender (in part from floral bracts usually shorter than flowers); lip (excluding auricles) subquadrangular, suborbiculate, or broadly ovate, obtuse or often emarginate.

Flowering Mar--Oct. Floodplain forests, hardwood, white-cedar, and cypress swamps, riparian thickets, wet meadows; 0--300 m; N.S., Ont.; Ala., Ark., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Ky., La., Miss., Mo., N.C., Okla., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va.

Mostly in the lake region in tamarack bogs, marshes, and sandy, wet places. It has been reported from Marshall and Vigo Counties. It is very rare and usually a single specimen is found at a place. [Deam treatment includes Habenaria scutellata which is now considered a synonym of P. flava. He differenitates it from P. flava sensu stricto on the basis of having bracts that are shorter than the flowers and having a wider lip. He says that] on September 28, 1923, I found a large colony of this species in flower and in fruit in Posey County, growing in a bare place under a clump of buttonbush where it must have been submerged much of the year. I transferred some of it to our garden in Bluffton where it did well for several years. This is the only record I know of from Indiana.

Stem 3-7 dm, ±leafy; well developed lvs lance-linear to lanceolate or lance-elliptic, to 20 נ5 cm, the upper much reduced or bract-like; spike loose or compact, 5-20 cm, 1.5 cm thick; bracts lance-linear, shorter to much longer than the fls; fls sessile, greenish-yellow or green, 5-6 mm wide; lip deflexed, 4-6 mm, often irregular on the margin, bearing a conspicuous, fin-like protuberance on the upper side just below the middle, and usually with a small lateral lobe on each side at the base; spur 3-6 mm; 2n=42. Boggy or swampy ground and flood-plains; N.S. and s. Que. to Minn., s. to Fla. and Tex. June-Sept. (Platanthera f.; Perularia f.; Perularia scutellata) Variable in aspect. Northern plants (including most of those in our range) usually have a leafier stem and a congested spike with elongate bracts. These have been distinguished as var. herbiola (R. Br.) Ames & Correll, in contrast to the more southern var. flava, extending n. into our s. margin, with loose spike, shorter bracts and broader lip.

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

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