Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Liliopsida -- monocotyledons

Order: Orchidales

Family: Orchidaceae --orchid

Common Name: Alaska rein-orchid

Species Code: HAUN

Origin: Native in xeric to mesic forests and open slopes that dry by mid-summer in western North America from Alaska to California east to Montana and New Mexico with scattered disjunct populations farther east.

Rare: no

Form: forb, perennial from fleshy, tuberous roots; 10-70 cm tall; stems simple and swollen toward the base; glabrous.

Duration: perennial

Habitat Type: forest, shrub thickets

Wetland Indicator Status: not listed

Leaves: basal leaves prostrate, withering by anthesis; blade sessile, lanceolate to oblanceolate, 5–20 cm long and 7–35 mm wide; cauline leaves reduced to bracts, ovate to linear-lanceolate.

Mature height: 4-28 inches

Flowers: numerous, borne in a sparsely to densely flowered raceme; flowers green to nearly white, resupinate, arranged in a spiral; upper sepal ovate to oblong; lateral sepals longer and narrower, spreading to strongly recurved; petals 2-5.5 mm long, fleshy and thickened, usually projecting to erect, oblique, lanceolate; lip oblong to triangular, 2-5 mm long.

Flower color: green, white

Bloom: June, July, August

Fruit: capsule, erect, 3.5-10.5 mm long, sessile; seeds tan to brown.

Characteristics:
Piperia unalascensis (Spreng.) Rydb. is the currently accepted name for the taxon. Some floras may treat it as Platanthera unalascensis (Sprengel) F. Kurtz. An alternate spelling of the specific epithet is unalaschensis.
H. unalascensis in St. John 1963, Davis 1953. Piperia unalascensis in Piper &Bettie 1914.
Reproduces sexually by seed.
Perennating organ is a tuber.
n=21 (Baldwin et al 2004, Flora of North America Editorial Committee 1993).
Flowers are perfect.
Diploids only are known.
Fruit is a capsule.

Comments: Seems to be less common on the Palouse than H. elegans.

Sun requirement: full to partial sun

Soil moisture: mesic

Sowing time: not recommended

Transplant time: not recommended

Seed comments: Do not collect seed or plants. Seed germination requires special conditions and techniques.

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Key words: upland perennial native forb

Propagation:
Native orchids or their seed should never be collected from the wild. Enjoy them where they grow and leave them alone. Seed germination requires the use of special medium and techniques. Seed is dissimilar from seed of most other plants.
Must be grown on special media, germination is equal in light or dark (Arditti et al 1982).
Seeds will not germinate unless in the presence of a mycorrhizae species associated with the plant (Parish et al 1996).
Orchid seeds lack an endosperm, radicle, and leaf rudiments (Arditti et al 1981).
Native orchids do not do well in cultivation and will persist in the garden for only a few seasons. They should not be collected from the wild (Hitchcock &Cronquist 1973).
Reproduces sexually by seed.

Notes: Habenaria elegans, Habenaria unalascensis and any other rein-orchids are members of the orchid family which grow in dappled shade under shrubs and Ponderosa pine. They should be enjoyed where they grow and left alone. Do not collect seed from them (Skinner et al 2005).

References:
Ackerman, J. D. 1977. Biosystematics of the Genus Piperia Rydb. (Orchidaceae). Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 75: 245-270.

Arditti, Joseph, Justine D. Michaud, and Allison P. Oliva. 1981. Seed Germination of North American Orchids. I. Native California and Related Species of Calypso, Epipactis, Goodyera, Piperia, and Platanthera. Botanical Gazette 142:442-453.

Arditti, Joseph, Allison P. Oliva, and Justine D. Michaud. 1982. Practical Germination of North American and Related Orchids - II - Goodyera oblongifolia and G. tesselata. American Orchid Society Bulletin 51:394-397.

Baldwin, B.G., S. Boyd, B.J. Ertter, D.J. Keil, R.W. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.H. Wilken (eds). 2004. Jepson Online Interchange for California Floristics. University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley, CA. Accessed 9/16/09 online at http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/interchange.html

Brown, Paul M. 2006. Wild Orchids of the Pacific Northwest and Canadian Rockies. University Press of Florida, Gainesville FL. 287 pp.

Davis, Ray J. 1952. Flora of Idaho. Wm. C. Brown, Dubuque, Iowa. 827 pp.

Flora of North America Editorial Committee, eds. 1993+. Flora of North America North of Mexico. 7+ vols. New York and Oxford. Oxford University Press. Online at http://www.fna.org/FNA/

Hitchcock, C. Leo, and Arthur Cronquist. 1973. Flora of the Pacific Northwest. Univ. of Washington Press. Seattle, WA.

Parish, Roberta, Ray Coupe, and Dennis Lloyd. 1996. Plants of Southern Interior British Columbia. Lone Pine Publishing. Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Piper, C.V., and R.K. Beattie. 1914. The Flora of Southeastern Washington and Adjacent Idaho. Lancaster, PA: Press of the New Era Printing Company. 296 pp.

St. John, Harold. 1963. Flora of Southeastern Washington and of Adjacent Idaho. 3rd edition. Outdoor Pictures. Escondido, CA.

Skinner, David M., Paul Warnick, Bill French, and Mary Fauci. 2005. More Palouse Forbs for Landscaping. USDA NRCS Pullman Plant Materials Center and Palouse Prairie Foundation. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/pmc_nrcs/Docs/More_Forbs_for_Landscaping.pdf

Links:
Plant Profile from the USDA PLANTS Database
Species description from Flora of North America
Species information from the University of Washington Herbarium