Checkered Rattlesnake Plantain

(Goodyera tesselata)

 

   

 

Color photograph: Homer D. House. 1918. Wildflowers of New York.

Line Drawing: Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada, Second Edition.

 

Checkered Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera tesselata Lodd.)

Identification: Flowers green-white, small. Flowers arranged in a loose spiral on a terminal spike. Stem woolly, with a few scalelike bracts. Leaves ovate-elongate, located near the base of the plant. Leaf dark green, reticulated and checkered with a pattern of white lines. Plant 6 to 16 inches in height.

Distribution: Southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States, southward to Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Minnesota.

Habitat: Checkered Rattlesnake Plantain is a woodland species.

Flowering period:  July to August.

Similar Species: Species of the genus Goodyera are easily identifieds by the dark green, basal leaves checkered by a pattern of white lines. The separation of species is more difficult and completely accurate identification depends on floral structure details best left to technical books. Downy Rattlesnake Plantain has the flowers arranged in a tight cylindrical spike. The flowers of Dwarf Rattlesnake Plantain are mostly confined to one side of the spike. The flowers of Checkered Rattlesnake Plantain are in an open spiral.

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