Two Platantheras Near Home

This year was an especially good year for wildflowers and orchids in our area due to a longer, cooler and wetter spring.  The last while I found several Piperias (now Platanthera) near our home, an especially nice find since we have had little opportunity to do any orchid hunting the past couple years.  One of the species, Piperia or Platanthera elongata, the Long-spurred Piperia, I had seen before, but this year I found it in five or six different locations within two miles of our home.  The other species, Piperia or Platanthera elegans, the Elegant Piperia, I had not seen before in our area and was thrilled to find one lonely stem.  Here are the photos.

Piperia elegans, Elegant Piperia

Piperia elongata, Long-spurred Piperia

The Colorado Rockies

 
Both in 2020 and 2021 the brother next to me and I backpacked in the Rocky Mountains west of Aspen, Colorado.  Last year we did part of the Four Passes Loop in the Maroon Bells.  This year we hiked to Cathedral Lake and Electric Pass and this year we each took a grandson along.  Neither trip was for the purpose of seeing native orchids but we did see a few, all of them familiar to me from the Pacific Northwest.

Platanthera dilatata var dilatata (Tall White Northern Bog Orchid)

Platanthera huronensis (Green Bog Orchis)

Platanthera x estesii (Estes Hybrid Rein Orchis)

Goodyera oblongifolia (Giant Rattlesnake Orchis)

Two Orchids at Baker Lake

 

In July we went on an overnight backpacking trip with our oldest daughter to Baker Lake in western Washington.  It was a very wet trip and was not meant to be an orchid-hunting trip but we did find two orchids, Corallorhiza mertensiana, the Western Coralroot, shown above and below, and Neottia cordata var. nephrophylla, the Western Heart-leaved Twayblade, shown at bottom.

Featured Gallery

I had been asked to do a gallery of photos for the North American Orchid Conservation Center's website for 2020.  The original plan was a gallery featuring the native orchids of the Olympic Peninsula since the annual native orchid conference was to be held there in 2020.  That conference had to be cancelled because of the covid crisis.  I was then asked to do a gallery, also featuring the orchids of the Olympic Peninsula, but titled, "What We Missed."  The gallery was duly published and is now on the website of NAOCC at this address: https://northamericanorchidcenter.org/featured-olympic-peninsula-what-we-missed/.  The photo at the head of this brief post is also on that website and is of myself photographing Cypripedium montanum, the Mountain Lady's Slipper, in Blewett Pass, Washington.  The other photos are the photos featured in the gallery.

Calyso bulbosa var. occidentalis

Epipactis gigantea

Platanthera dilatata var. dilatata

Platanthera x estesii (a natural hybird of P. dilatata and P. stricta)

Piperia (Platanthera) unalascensis in situ

Piperia (Platanthera) elegans

Piperia (Platanthera) transversa

Piperia (Platanthera) elongata

 Piperia candida (Platanthera ephemerantha)

 Goodyeara oblongifolia

 Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis

 Corallorhiza maculata var.ozettensis

Corallorhiza mertensiana

 Corallorhiza striata var. striata

 Neottia banksiana

 Spiranthes romanzoffiana

The Olympics

 

 July14-16 we were in Olympic National Park for some hiking and sightseeing.  We visited a number of our favorite places including Ruby Beach, the Hoh Rainforest, Hurricane Ridge, Lake Crescent and Deer Park.  We did one shorter hike along the Hoh River and one longer hike along Lillian Ridge and down to Grant Lake.  It was not meant to be an orchid-hunting trip but we did find a number of orchids which I've posted here.

Epipactis gigantea (Chatterbox or Stream Orchid)

 

Piperia (Platanthera) elegans (Elegant Piperia)

Neottia banksiana (Northwestern Twayblade)

Piperia (Platanthera) unalascensis (Alaskan Piperia)

Platanthera dilatata var. dilatata (Tall White Northern Bog Orchis)

Platanthera dilatata var. leucostachys (Sierra Rein Orchis)

Heliotrope Ridge

 

2020 has not been a good year for native orchids, mostly because of covid.  We have not been able to do the hiking we usually do and many of our hikes have been in areas that were not shut down but had few or no native orchids.  We did manage a hike in the North Cascades to Heliotrope Ridge near Mount Baker but saw only three orchids, a Twayblade, which we saw along the trail and two Platantheras, which we saw at the traihead in a boggy area.

 

Neottia cordata var. nephrophylla (Western Heart-leaved Twayblade)

Platanthera stricta (Slender Bog Orchis)

Platanthera dilatata var. dilatata (White Bog Orchis)