Please, never pick or attempt to transplant 
Orchids (or any other) wild plant. 
Click to purchase plants from legitimate plant nurseries.
Many Orchids are endangered.
Orchid habitat is very specialized.
Orchid pollination is very specialized.
Orchid germination is very specialized.
Admire plants in the wild and let them live.

Also see Corallorhiza maculata, Calypso bulbosa, Epipactis gigantea, Cypripedium parviflorum, and White Orchids

Click for Scotty Smith's Orchids of Colorado.

Platanthera aquilonis. Synonyms: Limnorchis hyperborea, Habenaria hyperborea.  (Bog Orchid)
Orchidaceae (Orchid Family)

Blooming information withheld to protect the Orchids.

This Orchid and the next are very similar, but can be distinguished from each other by the size of the spur at the back of each flower: in the species pictured at left the spur is about the length of the flower lip; in the next species, the spur is much shorter than the lip.

This species is often identified as either Limnorchis hyperborea or Habenaria hyperborea, but Orchid authority Charles Sheviak indicates that the hyperborea species is found only in Greenland and Iceland.  Sheviak renamed this species in 1999.  "Platanthera", Greek for “wide anthers”, refers to the flower's broad anthers. "Aquilnois" meaning “of the north” refers to its range.

Platanthera aquilonis. Synonyms: Limnorchis hyperborea, Habenaria hyperborea.  (Bog Orchid)
Orchidaceae (Orchid Family)

Platanthera stricta. Synonyms: Limnorchis stricta, Limnorchis saccata, Habenaria saccata.  (Bog Orchid)
Orchidaceae (Orchid Family)

Blooming information withheld to protect the Orchids.

It is uncommon to immediately see Bog Orchids as one would immediately see a flower such as Delphinium.  But stop at wet areas along mountain roads and rivulets and streamsides along trails during June and July and look carefully.  Often a Bog Orchid will materialize.  And where there is one there are almost always more.  Their overall green mass blends into the greenery of wet areas but they are set apart by their whorl of tiny green/white flowers around the twisted, stout flower stalk that arises from large, often vertical basal leaves.

Carl Willdenow assigned the genus name Habenaria (probably in the very late 1700s).  Edward Greene named the species Habenaria saccata in 1895 from a specimen collected by a Mrs. Austin along Lassen Creek in California in 1894.

The Limnorchis genus name apparently originated with Per Axel Rydberg in 1901 and the genus name Platanthera, the name now accepted by the Flora of North America, the USDA Plant Database, and the Synthesis of the North American Flora, dates to John Lindley's 1835 Genera and Species of Orchidaceous Plants.

"Limnorchis" is from the Greek, "limnaios", "of a bog".  "Stricta" is Latin for "drawn together" or "tight" and probably refers to the tight braiding of the flower stalk.  "Platanthera' is Greek for "broad" or "flattened" "flower".

Platanthera stricta. Synonyms: Limnorchis stricta, Limnorchis saccata, Habenaria saccata.  (Bog Orchid)
Orchidaceae (Orchid Family)

Looking so much like an Orchid flower, the Crab Spider (Misumena vatia) waits.

Platanthera stricta.  Synonym: Limnorchis stricta,  Limnorchis saccata, Habenaria saccata.  (Bog Orchid)
Orchidaceae (Orchid Family)

And then the spider is rewarded by a fly meal.

For quite some time, I had the fly at left identified as a bee.  I changed that identification after I received an email from Kelli Larsen, an undergraduate Colorado State student majoring in Botany with an Entomology minor.  Kelli told me about the critters in the photo at left:

First, the spider is a female Goldenrod spider, Misumena vatia (also known as a Flower Spider or Red-Spotted Crab Spider). Crab Spiders, in general, are ambush predators (my favorite kind!). They just sit patiently on a flower and wait for their meal to come to them. As for the fly, I'd say it's Eristalis tenax, a Drone Fly, which is similar to a Honey Bee in size, coloration, and even behavior. These characteristics help ward off most predators, as these flies are harmless and defenseless nectar and pollen feeders. Drone Flies are part of a larger family of bee and wasp mimics which make up the family Syrphidae.

Thanks Kelli.

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Platanthera aquilonis

Range map for Platanthera stricta