Early Spider Orchid

Plant blooms in spring with several 2.5 to 3.8 cm flowers. It forms stands of relatively short plants between 30 cm to 40 cm in April and May. Spikes with 2-10 flowers, sepals green to yellowish, sometimes flushed with redish-purple, oblong to lanceolate, blunt. Petals green to greenish-purple or brownish or dull red, triangular to lanceolate, at least half the length of the sepals. Lip 10-12 mm long, oval in outline, generally ulobed but with two hairy basal bosses, velvety-brown or dark brown, with an H-shaped violet-blue or purplish speculum, sometimes with the cross-bar of the H missing. Subsp. mammosa: Larger lip (10-15 mm. long), blackish brown or purplish with large basal bosses and an H-shaped speculum, often with the cross-bar missing. Sepals usually wavy-edged, often stained with dull red.