Lindsay Lohan showed up to the LA County Morgue for her court-ordered community service, but the 25-year-old actress was turned away because she was LATE!

Steve Honig, Lilo's rep, tells X17online:

    "Lindsay arrived at the morgue approximately 20 minutes late and will be returning for orientation tomorrow. Her lateness was due to a combination of not knowing what entrance to go through and confusion caused by the media waiting for her arrival. Lindsay spoke with the supervisors at the morgue, they showed her how to get in and everything is all cleared up."


We're told Lilo left her house at 7:30am behind the wheel ... rushing and running red lights to get there by her start time of 8am. She arrived to the morgue at 8:22am.

Lindsay was seen driving into the morgue parking lot ... and her assistant briefly speaking with a morgue employee. Even though Lilo entered the building in the hopes of persuading officials to let her start working today, she failed.

UPDATE: Lilo just Tweeted the following:

    "With all of the stress and pressure from yesterday and today, I've never been so happy to go to therapy!!!! Also, I'm sorry for the confusion that I may of caused to those at the Coroner's office. Won't happen again, now I know where to go! Thank you for your help."