Erect, stout, leafy plant. Flower spike with many greenish-yellow flowers, measured to 15 mm long, 5 mm wide, the lip having 2 teeth at the apex. The flower spike is full of leafy bracts, linear in shape. Bracts measured at  3 cm long and 5 mm wide. Flower spikes measured to 15 cm long. Plants glabrous.

Habitat is openings in woods, and moist meadows.

Not common, listed as an S3S4 by the Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre.

Height is listed in Budd's Flora to 60 cm tall, we measured plants to 46 cm tall.

This plant can be confused with Plantanthera aquilonsis. Examine the flower lip to distinguish between the two, that plant does not have 2 teeth on its flower lip, while Coeloglossum viride does have a lip with 2 teeth.

Photographed this plant June 3rd in the Porcupine Forest south of Hudson Bay, about 400 km north of Regina, June 18th Mixed woods Cypress Hills about 450 km southwest or Regina, and June 22nd moist aspen woods about 70 km south east of our home in Regina, SK.

I get preachy here: please don't dig up native orchids to try to grow them in your garden. They are becoming rare in the wild due to loss of habitat and wild harvesting. By all accounts they are also quite difficult to transplant successfully from the wild. If you want to grow them in your garden, there are nurseries who grow native orchids from seed who will sell plants to you.

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