ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE

PROTECTION STATUS: Not listed (proposed 2015)

PETITOINED: 2004

RANGE: Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky (extirpated from North Carolina)

THREATS: Logging, off-road vehicles, development, canopy closure, overbrowsing by deer, digging by feral hogs, ditching and draining of wetlands, herbicide spraying, pollution and sedimentation into streams, invasion by exotic pest plants

POPULATION TREND: Historically there were at least 90 populations of the white fringeless orchid. Now the orchid's status is uncertain in more than one-third of the 58 small remaining populations. The species has completely disappeared from North Carolina.



Photo by Brad Wilson