In Ottawa District, fairly open treed fens, open sedge fens and some swamps associated with these fens. Within treed habitats, the orchid plants group in well-defined areas where the canopy is thin and shrub layer is absent. In sedge fens the plants are scattered across the open fen, on the wet peat of the fen floor or on mounds of fen mosses.
In Bruce Peninsula, prefers cold northern forests and shaded bogs and swamps.

Height to 15 cm.
Leaf solitary, clasping stem near base, dull yellow-green, ovate-elliptic.
Raceme loose, irregular, somewhat one-sided, with 1-8 flowers, bracts lanceolate.
Flowers white to pale pink blotted and spotted with deep purple. Petals form hood with dorsal sepal. Lip deeply 3-lobed, middle lobe spatulate to cuneate, lateral lobes smaller, elliptic.
Column short, beneath the hood. Spur slender, curved.

Common in the northwest of the continent, widespread but local in the east. Only two locations in the Bruce Peninsula, rare and apparently approaching extinction in the Ottawa District, loose groups of flowering and non-flowering groups in Eastern Ontario.
Highly variable pattern of lip colouration in the species.

Guide to Orchids of North America
Orchids of Ontario
The Orchids of Bruce & Grey