new tubers every year by lateral buds, thereby "spending their perennial life 

 in a state of perpetual somatic youth" (Harper 1977, in Wells 1981). There 

 was no evidence that lateral buds produced underground shoots, but in the 

 course of collecting a voucher specimen, it was observed that the multiple, 

 tuberously-thickened roots have high turgidity, without internal or external 

 structure to prevent breakage, and they snap easily. While the great majority 

 of plants are single-stemmed, a small number of multi-stemmed plants or 

 small clumps were noted in settings that are trampled by livestock, 

 presumably as a result of vegetative reproduction. 



Outcrossing is promoted by protandrous flowers, the sequence of flowering 

 that always begins with the bottom flower of the infloresence, and by 

 acropetal movement of the bee pollinator on infloresences; though the 

 flowers are fully self-compatible (Sipes and Tepedino 1995). 



2. Pollination. 



a. Mechanisms: Insect pollen vectors are required for sexual 



reproduction; primarily taking place through geitonogamy and 

 xenogamy (Sipes and Tepedino 1995). The members of the Orchid 

 Family are adapted to increase the likelihood of insect pollination by 

 offering special attractions to a restricted set of potential pollinators, 

 and to have the pollen stick together in masses so that many grains are 

 transported and the many thousands of ovules in each flower are 

 pollinated at once (Cronquist 1968, Stebbins 1974). 



The species is in the late-season guild of flowering plant activity, 

 which includes such late-blooming genera as Aster, Gentian, and 

 Solidago. It is usually in low numbers and density and is pollinated 

 by a generalist, perhaps depending on this guild and the earlier guilds 

 to support its pollinator (after Buchmann and Nabhan 1996). The only 

 occurrence where bumblebee visits were noted (EO#001) had high 

 densities of spotted knapweed (Centaurea maculata) flowering at the 

 same time, a species also visited by bumblebees. 



Most of the fiiiits that were observed in the Montana monitoring site 

 appeared to be fertile. The only fruits observed during monitoring 

 which may not have been fertile were the terminal infloresences 

 which were late to mature. This contrasts with the high incidence of 

 plants with infloresences made up of aborted fruits in, e.g., the Deer 

 Creek population monitored by Arft (1995), ascribed to low pollinator 

 activity. Additional cursory pollinator observations and fruit 

 examinations may be warranted. 



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