north american native orchid journal - at The Culture Sheet

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Empiricist: JEWELS IN THE MOST UNLIKELY PLACES Not only Spiranthes, but Platanthera, the fringed and rein orchises, Calopogon, many of the grass pinks, Sacoila, the leafless beaked orchid, and even some species of Listera and Liparis, the twayblades, like the roadsides’ expanses for a home. I have seen the following growing along the highway, often in mixed colonies: • Florida and the southeast: Sacoila (FL), Calopogon, Platanthera, Spiranthes, Gymnadeniopsis • Northeast: Spiranthes, Pogonia. Gymnadeniopsis, Epipactis, Platanthera, and even pink lady’s-slippers! • Northwest: Spiranthes, Platanthera, Piperia, a stray Calypso and mountain lady’s-slippers The prairies of southern Manitoba amazed us with plants of Platanthera praeclara, the western prairie fringed orchis, extending from the prairies into the roadside shoulders and ditches, often with the green rein orchises, Platanthera huronensis and P. aquilonis. So much of what you see in both Newfoundland and Alaska are roadside plants, in part because there are so few roads to the interior that the main roads are where you tend to be! Some even stranger places I’ve seen orchids growing along the highway were Spiranthes casei, Case’s ladies-tresses, growing in rip rap in Vermont, Listera borealis, northern twayblade, growing in the gravel parking lot in Alberta near Lake Louise and Calypso bulbosa var. occidentalis, western calypso, in northern California growing under the redwoods right along and nearly within the road! Another unlikely habitat occurs at high elevations where the weather can be harsh and unforgiving but in the mountain meadows or tucked into small sheltered depressions on windswept heights orchids find a niche! I have seen the rattail adder’s-mouth orchids, Malaxis soulei, in August in the Huachuca Mountain heights in Arizona and Cypripedium montanum, mountain lady’s-slippers, gracing the roadsides in Radium Hot Springs, 36
Empiricist: JEWELS IN THE MOST UNLIKELY PLACES British Columbia. In the Olympics of western Washington the Alaskan orchid, Piperia unalascensis, grows in a dwarf form (forma olympica) and down in Port Angles roadsides abound with up to five species of Piperia! Old cemeteries that don’t get mowed frequently have habitats that invite orchids to colonize them. New England is rich with small cemeteries that yield the ardent explorer with handsome rewards. One such cemetery in Connecticut has Spiranthes lacera var. gracilis, southern slender ladies’-tresses, and several hybrids as well as S. vernalis, grass-leaved ladies’-tresses, flowering in mid-August. You don’t always need a neglected old cemetery to find an orchid jewel. Florida has a cemetery where dancing lady orchids. Tolumnia bahamense, grows in the undeveloped areas. It is here the Florida rosemary bushes afford the orchid an opportunity to climb and flower with charming cascades of butterfly-like blossoms. They appear to be doing a stately gavotte in the gentle breeze. Sometimes vacant lots or abandoned housing developments offer orchids the right conditions to seed in although more often the orchids have been destroyed by the clearing and bulldozing. Those orchids that are successional may take up residences as nature reclaims the area. A borrow pit in southern New Hampshire that was cleared for a golf driving range that failed is filled with grass pinks, Calopogon tuberosus, and rose pogonia, Pogonia ophioglossoides, and a few northern tubercled orchids, Platanthera flava var. herbiola, are starting to show up. Of course, several species of Spiranthes are found throughout the pit habitat. Succession is claiming the area though and poplars, willows, and other trees have seeded in as nature reforests the clearing chasing out the orchids. In housing developments that never materialized in California and Washington, and Florida we have found orchids in the ditches as well as the vacant lots. Florida yielded wild coco, Eulophia alta, water-spider orchids, Habenaria repens, and a variety of Spiranthes of course. Wet ditches in otherwise dry areas in California had Epipactis gigantea, 37
Page 1 and 2: NORTH AMERICAN NATIVE ORCHID JOURNA
Page 3 and 4: NORTH AMERICAN NATIVE ORCHID JOURNA
Page 5 and 6: NOTES FROM THE EDITOR Although a sm
Page 7 and 8: Brown: AN ALBINO ADDER’S MOUTH FR
Page 9 and 10: Brown: TWO WEEKS AND 39 ORCHIDS IN
Page 25 and 26: Pelchat: SPIRANTHES PARKSII CORRELL
Page 37: Empiricist: JEWELS IN THE MOST UNLI
Page 41 and 42: SOME NORTH AMERICAN ORCHID FACTOIDS
Page 47 and 48: Folsom: A CASE FOR EVOLUTION the me
Page 49 and 50: Folsom: A CASE FOR EVOLUTION when g
Page 51: Folsom: A CASE FOR EVOLUTION calcar

north american native orchid journal - at The Culture Sheet

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?