Please, never pick or attempt to transplant 
Orchids (or any other) wild plant. 
Click to purchase plants from legitimate plant nurseries.
Many Orchids are endangered.
Orchid habitat is very specialized.
Orchid pollination is very specialized.
Orchid germination is very specialized.
Admire them in the wild and let them live.

Also see Calypso bulbosa, Epipactis gigantea, Cypripedium calceolus, and Green Orchids.

Click for Scotty Smith's Orchids of Colorado.

Blooming information withheld to protect the Orchids.

These delicate Orchids grow on eight to twenty inch tall showy maroon stalks, but yellow albino plants (pictured below) are not unusual.  Corallorhiza maculata prefers shady Aspen and Conifer forests where their coral-resembling roots feed off the forest floor fungi and roots of other plants: they are thus parasitic. They were formerly also considered saprophytic but recent reseach shows that no plants are saprophytic; they are actually parasitic, living off fungi which in turn are parasitic on the roots of living plants.

Flowers are variably spotted, one-half inch high, and numerous.  Plants may occur with just one or two stalks or dozens, and the stalks remain upright and obvious long after the flowers are gone.  Where you find one plant, you will almost certainly find many more.

The Corallorhiza genus was named by Jean Chatelain, probably in the late 1700s.   In 1817 Constantine Rafinesque named this species which was collected from "shady woods of Long Island, near Flatbush, Flushing, Oyster-Bay, etc." by an unidentified collector.  (Quotation from Rafinesque in Intermountain Flora.)

"Corallorhiza" is Greek for "coral root" and "maculata" is Latin for "spotted".

Click for more Corallorhiza maculata.

Unfolding flower buds and drooping seed pods.

Yellow Corallorhiza maculata are fairly common, and always startlingly attractive.

The plant ar far left is a typical yellow plant; to its right is a plant showing characteristics of the yellow and normal plant.

Blooming information withheld to protect the Orchids. 

This and the above Orchid look very similar as they emerge from the ground but once the flowers unfold, the difference is clear: stripes versus spots.  C. striata is also a bit shorter plant than C. maculata; its sheaths along the lower part of the stem are more closely spaced; and the flowers not only differ in having stripes versus spots, but in several other prominent ways: C. striata flowers are about 1 1/2 times the size of the flowers of C. maculata; the flowers of striata tend to be more spherical in overall shape; the lip of the flowers of striata is entire, that of C. maculata is often wavy edged and has two prominent lateral lobes near its base; and, of course, there is a significant difference in color: overall striata has a blue/yellow cast to it and maculata has a pink/white/yellow cast to it.

Both plants enjoy open Spruce/Pine/Aspen forests where they can be fairly common.   Once you have spotted one plant, stand still, look around, and you will almost certainly find more.  And, of course, appreciate the plants where you find them.  They will die if you try to transplant them.

Blooming information withheld to protect the Orchids. 

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Corallorhiza maculata  

Range map for Corallorhiza striata