Family: Orchidaceae

Common name: Rattlesnake plantain

E-flora BC: https://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/Atlas/Atlas.aspx?sciname=Goodyera%20oblongifolia

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodyera_oblongifolia

While walking along a forest trail and looking at mosses, you may have noticed unusually patterned rosettes of leaves, pressed flat into the mossy carpet. The leaf rosette can be quite small, less than 10 cm in diameter, or sometimes close to 20 cm if you’re running into a particularly vigorous specimen. They often occur in groups of several plants right next to each other – they spread through an underground stem (a rhizome), so the individuals plants in a small group growing close together is really a single plant.

Rattlesnake plantain is an evergreen orchid, the leaves are present all year round. In July, mature healthy specimens will produce a flower spike. The flowers are nothing like the showy ones that you find on house-plant orchids available at supermarkets and flower shops, instead, they are whitish, sometimes light-green, and barely the size of a pinky fingernail.

The white leaf pattern of rattlesnake plantain is quite variable, either a netted pattern as in this photograph, sometimes more of just a white midrib as on the leaf as seen below. Almost always, we find the plant growing in amongst the mosses on the forest floor. (The surrounding moss in this photo happens to be a Kindbergia species.) Photo credit: Lynda Stevens
Here’s an example of a rattlesnake plantain specimen with white leaf midribs, but very little netting. (The surrounding moss in this photo happens to be a Hylocomium species.) Photo credit: Lynda Stevens
The hairy flowering stalk of rattlesnake plantain usually appears in July around Nanaimo. The flower is quite small and inconspicuous. Photo credit: Richard Droker via Flickr