A plant similar to the Yellow-fringed Orchis, but with a densely or rather dense, many-flowered spike of pure-white flowers, the petals toothed or somewhat fringed at the apex, rarely entire, the lip copiously or sparingly fringed.

In bogs and swamps, Newfoundland to Minnesota, Florida and Mississippi. When growing with the Yellow-fringed Orchis, it blooms a few days earlier. It is found in nearly all the sphagnum bogs of northern New York and is not uncommon in moist depressions of the sandy coastal plain. Flowering from late June until early August in northern New York.

Memoir 15 N. Y. State Museum

Plate 38

White-Fringed Orchis - Blephariglottis blephariglottis

The Prairie White-fringed Orchis (Blephariglottis leucophaea (Nuttall) Farwell) has larger, white, fragrant flowers, sometimes tinged with green; the lip three-parted, the segments broadly wedge-shaped and copiously fringed. Most abundant westward but occurring eastward to New England.