Thursday, May 29, 2014

Corallorhiza mertensiana fma. pallida


The Western Coralroot has many pale-stemmed forms, the stems varying from pale pink though off-white, white, pale tan and yellow.  One of the places we go every years to see this species has almost all light-stemmed forms.  Paul Martin Brown calls those with a pale pink stem Corallorhiza mertensiana fma. pallida.  The colors, however, are so variable that calling a plant by this name is rather arbitrary.  Nevertheless, I've included all the pale stemmed forms in a separate post under this name.

May 27
(Whidbey Island)
















June 25
(North Cascades)










4 comments:

Andrew Lane Gibson said...

So many different stunning forms of Corallorhiza out you way, Ron. Wonderfully captured as always!

Ron said...

These are our favorites, Andrew, with all the color variation. It is always a game to see how many different colors we can find at a location and the odd thing is that the different forms will often be growing in the same clump.

Anonymous said...

Excellent, Ron! This is one I just have to see one day!

Ron said...

You know that you are always welcome, Jim. I would be delighted to take you around and show you our treasures. There's one place where these grow by the hundreds in every imaginable color and it would be wonderful to have you see them.