Spring Coralroot

The stems are the inflorescence of the plant and range in height between 10 and 55 centimeters (4 and 22 in) and do not have a thickened base. They can range in color between red-purple, yellowish-brown, and yellow. They are racemes, an unbranched stem of flowers with the oldest flowers closer to the base, and can be densely or sparsely covered in blooms. Each stem will have as few as 2 or as many as 25 flowers. The stem never has any leaves, but each flower has a small bract under where its attaches.

Spring coralroot is native to a wide area of North America from southern Mexico to Montana in the United States. In Mexico it can be found in the southeastern state of Chiapas and the southwestern states of Colima, Jalisco, Michoacán, and Oaxaca. In central Mexico it grow in the capital Ciudad de Mexico, the State of Mexico, Morelos, and Tlaxcala. To the northeast it is part of the flora of Coahuila, Chihuahua, Hidalgo, and Nuevo León, but is only found in Baja California Sur and Sonora in the northwest. In the western United States it has been recorded in widely scattered counties along the Rocky Mountains from New Mexico and Arizona to Idaho and Wyoming. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service only shows it in Phillips County, Montana and also reports it being found in Jackson County, Oregon. The Flora of North America does not show it as native to Oregon, but does report it in Washington State without a specific location. It is recorded in four counties in western South Dakota. In Nebraska it grows in two counties, but at opposite ends of the state with the southeastern portion being part of the species range south to eastern Texas and in every state eastward. It grows as far north as New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the eastern US. …

In Florida this species gets its nutrients mainly from the ectomycorrhizal fungi Russula amoenolens and Russula pectinatoides. In the Mexico and the western United States they associate with fungi in the family Thelephoraceae.