Inflorescences lax, slender (in part from floral bracts usually shorter than flowers); lip (excluding auricles) subquadrangular, suborbiculate, or broadly ovate, obtuse or often emarginate. Flowering Mar--Oct. Floodplain forests, hardwood, white-cedar, and cypress swamps, riparian thickets, wet meadows; 0--300 m; N.S., Ont.; Ala., Ark., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Ky., La., Miss., Mo., N.C., Okla., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va.
From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam
Mostly in the lake region in tamarack bogs, marshes, and sandy, wet places. It has been reported from Marshall and Vigo Counties. It is very rare and usually a single specimen is found at a place. [Deam treatment includes Habenaria scutellata which is now considered a synonym of P. flava. He differenitates it from P. flava sensu stricto on the basis of having bracts that are shorter than the flowers and having a wider lip. He says that] on September 28, 1923, I found a large colony of this species in flower and in fruit in Posey County, growing in a bare place under a clump of buttonbush where it must have been submerged much of the year. I transferred some of it to our garden in Bluffton where it did well for several years. This is the only record I know of from Indiana.
