Flora of Georgia and surrounding states
Piedmont Plants
Platanthera integrilabia (Correll) Luer 1975, monkeyface orchid, white fringeless orchid
If I were forced to name a "favorite" wildflower, it would have to be this one, because there is a story behind it. In 1985 when Tom Patrick became the state botanist for Georgia, he began searching records for all the rare plants in the state. He found a 1938 record for monkeyface on the "north slope of Blackjack Mountain". Since I live nearby, he handed me the reference and asked if I would search for it.
It so happens that friend Stan Wise grew up on the north slope of Blackjack Mountain so I asked him one day at church if he knew were a "black, mucky, nearly always wet" place was. He said sure! So on a hot July day I met him at his parent's place and we followed the unnamed drainage behind their house and found exactly that kind of place. It was just full of green wood or rein orchid, Platanthera clavellata along with very similar orchid leaves that were much larger. I went back the end of August and found monkeyface in full flower!
This began an intense interest in this orchid and I've now visited it in all its Georgia locations as well as the motherlode on Starr Mountain.
Taxonomy
As early as 1817 the wide anther seemed distinct enough from the Habenaria and Orchis to erect a new genus, which Louis Claude Marie Richard did. It wasn't widely recognized until Carlyle A. Luer* published his two-volume work on orchids in 1975 which included monkeyface as a combinatio novum.
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz created the genus Blephariglottis in 1836 for the fringe-lipped forms, a clearly unnatural grouping.
For lumpers like Arthur Cronquist, his is the valid name as a Habenaria.
Synonyms
Blephariglottis longicornis Rafinesque 1836 (unresolved name)
Habenaria blephariglottis (Willdenow) Hooker var. integrilabia Correll 1941
Blephariglottis integrilabia (Correll) W.J. Schrenk 1976, 1977
Habenaria correlliana (Correll) Cronquist 1991
Etmology
Plathanthera comes from the Greek πλατύς platys, broad + ανθώς anthos, flower to ἀνθηρός antheros, flowery, blooming to ἀνθηρά anthēra. Very curiously, the two derived Greek words are the feminine form of anthos, yet is male part of the flower! Thus it is literally for the "broad anther".
integrilabia come from the Latin integer, whole, complete + Latin labia, lip; for the unfringed, regular edge if the lip petal.
Monkeyface refers to the fanciful, imaginative appearance of the flower when looking straight at it.
Status
Federally listed as a candidate species for protection.
State of Georgia listed as threatened.
NatureServe status is G2 - Imperiled.
Distribution & Habitat
The UNC Atlas has a county-level distribution map, but it lacks all Georgia records.
The Biota of North America has a county-level distribution map.
The UGA Atlas county-level map only shows five locations.
Monkeyface is known from 53 widely scattered locations in the southeast, most from the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee and Kentucky. With the exception of Starr Mountain, above Etowah, Tennessee, most locations have fewer than 100 plants. Georgia has eight extant Piedmont locations and one in the Blue Ridge. The Cobb County location has been extirpated by development.
Its normal habitat is in black, mucky, saturated soil at the heads of streams or seepage areas that are nearly flat. Its common associates are sphagnum moss; cinnamon fern, Osmunda cinnamonea; netted chain fern, Woodwardia areolata; New York fern, Thelyptris novaboracensis; and—especially in Georgia—cowbane, Oxypolis rigidior.
Description
Two features make this orchid distinctive from its relatives—one noticeable from a distance: the very long (5 cm+!) nectary spur and the unfringed lip. In comparison to white fringed orchid, Platanthera blephariglottis, monkeyface is a much smaller plant. When the first white of the buds show, it is hardly larger than P. clavellata, and only has typically one large leaf and just a few stem bracts. The single large leaf is strongly keeled on the abaxial (under) side which can be helpful in recognizing this genus of orchids.
Since orchid seeds lack endosperm (the two halves of a bean or peanut, not the "heart") for nutrition when germinating, they must immediately find a fungal host to help, making all known orchid species myco-heterotrophic. The vast majority of fungi in these relationships are unknown. Because Larry Zetler of Clemson University (now Illinois University) took up study of monkefyace, he had a hand in isolating the fungus and naming it:
Currah, R.S.; Zettler, L.W.; McInnis, T.M. 1997. Epulorhiza inquilina sp. nov. from Platanthera (Orchidaceae) and a key to Epulorhiza species. Mycotaxon 61:335-342
The vast majority of my photos of monkeyface are in 35 mm slide film that I've not yet digitized.
It so happens that friend Stan Wise grew up on the north slope of Blackjack Mountain so I asked him one day at church if he knew were a "black, mucky, nearly always wet" place was. He said sure! So on a hot July day I met him at his parent's place and we followed the unnamed drainage behind their house and found exactly that kind of place. It was just full of green wood or rein orchid, Platanthera clavellata along with very similar orchid leaves that were much larger. I went back the end of August and found monkeyface in full flower!
This began an intense interest in this orchid and I've now visited it in all its Georgia locations as well as the motherlode on Starr Mountain.
Taxonomy
As early as 1817 the wide anther seemed distinct enough from the Habenaria and Orchis to erect a new genus, which Louis Claude Marie Richard did. It wasn't widely recognized until Carlyle A. Luer* published his two-volume work on orchids in 1975 which included monkeyface as a combinatio novum.
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz created the genus Blephariglottis in 1836 for the fringe-lipped forms, a clearly unnatural grouping.
For lumpers like Arthur Cronquist, his is the valid name as a Habenaria.
Synonyms
Blephariglottis longicornis Rafinesque 1836 (unresolved name)
Habenaria blephariglottis (Willdenow) Hooker var. integrilabia Correll 1941
Blephariglottis integrilabia (Correll) W.J. Schrenk 1976, 1977
Habenaria correlliana (Correll) Cronquist 1991
Etmology
Plathanthera comes from the Greek πλατύς platys, broad + ανθώς anthos, flower to ἀνθηρός antheros, flowery, blooming to ἀνθηρά anthēra. Very curiously, the two derived Greek words are the feminine form of anthos, yet is male part of the flower! Thus it is literally for the "broad anther".
integrilabia come from the Latin integer, whole, complete + Latin labia, lip; for the unfringed, regular edge if the lip petal.
Monkeyface refers to the fanciful, imaginative appearance of the flower when looking straight at it.
Status
Federally listed as a candidate species for protection.
State of Georgia listed as threatened.
NatureServe status is G2 - Imperiled.
Distribution & Habitat
The UNC Atlas has a county-level distribution map, but it lacks all Georgia records.
The Biota of North America has a county-level distribution map.
The UGA Atlas county-level map only shows five locations.
Monkeyface is known from 53 widely scattered locations in the southeast, most from the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee and Kentucky. With the exception of Starr Mountain, above Etowah, Tennessee, most locations have fewer than 100 plants. Georgia has eight extant Piedmont locations and one in the Blue Ridge. The Cobb County location has been extirpated by development.
Its normal habitat is in black, mucky, saturated soil at the heads of streams or seepage areas that are nearly flat. Its common associates are sphagnum moss; cinnamon fern, Osmunda cinnamonea; netted chain fern, Woodwardia areolata; New York fern, Thelyptris novaboracensis; and—especially in Georgia—cowbane, Oxypolis rigidior.
Description
Two features make this orchid distinctive from its relatives—one noticeable from a distance: the very long (5 cm+!) nectary spur and the unfringed lip. In comparison to white fringed orchid, Platanthera blephariglottis, monkeyface is a much smaller plant. When the first white of the buds show, it is hardly larger than P. clavellata, and only has typically one large leaf and just a few stem bracts. The single large leaf is strongly keeled on the abaxial (under) side which can be helpful in recognizing this genus of orchids.
Since orchid seeds lack endosperm (the two halves of a bean or peanut, not the "heart") for nutrition when germinating, they must immediately find a fungal host to help, making all known orchid species myco-heterotrophic. The vast majority of fungi in these relationships are unknown. Because Larry Zetler of Clemson University (now Illinois University) took up study of monkefyace, he had a hand in isolating the fungus and naming it:
Currah, R.S.; Zettler, L.W.; McInnis, T.M. 1997. Epulorhiza inquilina sp. nov. from Platanthera (Orchidaceae) and a key to Epulorhiza species. Mycotaxon 61:335-342
The vast majority of my photos of monkeyface are in 35 mm slide film that I've not yet digitized.
*Luer, C.A. 1975. The native orchids of the United States excluding Florida. l;N