Plants 35-105 cm. Leaves 2-5, spreading to ascending, scattered along stem, gradually reduced to bracts distally; blade lanceolate, elliptic, oblong-elliptic, or oblance-oblong, 7-27 × 1.2-5 cm. Spikes lax to dense. Flowers resupinate, showy, rose-purple; lateral sepals somewhat reflexed; petals oblong-linear to spatulate, distally crenate to entire; lip descending to somewhat porrect, deeply 3-lobed, without basal thickening, 11-20 × 12-23 mm, distal margins of lobes dentate-lacerate, rarely nearly entire, lateral lobes narrowly cuneate, middle lobe broadly cuneate-flabellate, emarginate to 2-fid; spur clavate, 20-30 mm; rostellum lobes directed forward, spreading, angular; pollinaria straight to geniculate; pollinia directed forward; viscidia orbiculate; ovary slender, 13-23 mm. Flowering (Jun--)Jul--Aug(--Oct). Alluvial forests, wet wooded flats, stream banks, seeping slopes, marshes, moist prairies, old fields and pastures, ditches, thickets; 0--800 m; Ala., Ark., Del., Ga., Ill., Ind., Ky., Md., Miss., Mo., N.J., N.C., Ohio, Pa., S.C., Tenn., Va., W.Va.