RHH's photos with the keyword: northern green bog orchis

This is another orchid we found growing with the Lady's Slippers, though in a slightly more sunny area. It is the Northern Green Bog Orchis and though the green Bog Orchids freely interbreed and are often hard to distinguish, this pretty well fits very well the description of that species. The forward-curving spur which is shorter than the lip, the yellowish lip, and within the flower the anther sacs at the base of the flowers and forming a kind of inverted vee shape are all diagnostic. These are, obviously, not as beautiful as the Lady's Slippers but of interest because they are orchids. As the name suggests they like wet areas and are often found in ditches along the road as this was.

The green Platantheras are very hard to distinguish, but I believe the expanded tip of the lip on this plant is diagnostic. This was photographed in the glacial area below Robson Glacier, just north of the Berg Lake Camp.

Photographed near Lake Elizabeth in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in the area of Skykomish, Washington. Keys to the identification of this species are the inflated spur and yellowish lip. This was published in the April, 2011, issue of Orchids, the magazine of the American Orchid Society, in an article titled "Taking Aim."

Platanthera aquilonis is the Northern Green Bog Orchis, one of a group of green Platantheras that are difficult to distinguish from each other and all of which have rather unremarkable flowers. These were growing in a very wet area along a Forest Service road in the Cascades near Greenwater. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/08/near-greenw...