The beautiful pink Coastal Plain Pogonia (Cleistesiopsis oricamporum), formerly considered to be Fernald’s Pogonia (Cleistesiopsis bifaria), is distinguished by a single large leaf, a bearded lip, and three light purple sepals that spread outward. Found in wet flatwoods of northern Florida, it blooms in April and May, most profusely after a fire. Its other common name, the Lesser Spreading Pogonia, separates it from the similar Spreading Pogonia (C. divaricata) which has a much larger lip and column. The species name oricamporum from ori (coast) and camporum (plain) describes its locale.
Originally considered to be the same species as Fernald’s Pogonia (C. bifaria) which is found in mountainous areas of the southeastern United States, taxonomists have concluded that the orchids found in the costal plains of north Florida are distinct from the Fernald’s Pogonia and have created a new species, the Coastal Plain Pogonia (Cleistesiopsis oricamporum). Unlike the unscented Fernald’s Pogonia, flowers of the Coastal Plain Pogonia have a sweet vanilla fragrance.
Fernald’s Pogonia was described by Merritt Lyndon Fernald (1873–1950), an American botanist best known as the editor of Gray’s Manual of Botany. Its genus and species name Pogonia bifaria describe the orchid’s beard (pogon) which has two rows (bifaria) of fringes.
A taxonomic description of the Coastal Plain Pogonia may be read in the North American Native Orchid Journal 15(1) p. 50.
