Spiranthes romanzoffiana

Hooded ladies' tresses

Family: Orchidaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Hooded ladies' tresses is a California native perennial found in northwestern California, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, Central Coast, San Francisco Bay Area, San Bernardino Mountains, San Jacinto Mountains, and Modoc Plateau in bogs, wet meadows, freshwater marshes, and edges of open conifer forests at elevations up to 3,300 meters. Flowering from July to September, this delicate plant produces white to ivory flowers tightly spiraled in dense clusters, with distinctive ovate flowers forming a distinctive "hood" where sepals and petals meet. Growing 5 to 60 centimeters tall with slender, erect stems, it emerges from moist ground with a graceful, delicate presence. Its leaves are linear-lanceolate to oblanceolate, ranging from narrow to slightly wider toward the tip, providing a subtle green backdrop to its intricate floral display. The flower's lip is broadly fiddle-shaped, strongly recurved, with a central white to greenish-yellow coloration often marked by delicate lime-green veins.

Habitat: Bogs, wet meadows, freshwater marshes, fens, seeps, wet roadsides, edges of open conifer forests, coastal dune swales

Bloom period: Jul-Sep

Elevation: < 3300 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, SN, CCo, SnFrB, SnBr, SnJt, MP

California counties: Humboldt, Riverside, Santa Cruz, Nevada, Fresno, Siskiyou, Tuolumne, Plumas, San Mateo, Tulare, Lassen, Trinity, Del Norte, El Dorado, Inyo, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco, Mono, Tehama, Mariposa, Modoc, Butte, Mendocino, Placer, Amador, Sierra, Marin, Calaveras, Alameda, Contra Costa, Madera, Shasta, Alpine, Monterey, Lake, Sonoma

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.