On Friday, April 20, we took the afternoon and evening off and went to Washington Park near Anacortes, one of our favorite places. We went to see the Fairy Slippers, expecting that they would be just starting bloom on account of our long cold and wet spring. We found them at their peak with some of them already starting to go by. We did not go only to see them, but to see the Oregon Fawn Lilies (Erythronium oregonum), the Few-flowered Shooting Stars (Dodecatheon pulchellum), and other wild flowers which bloom on the cliffs of this beautiful park. The Fairy Slippers are the main attraction, though, and spring would not be the same without the opportunity to see them.
We saw the other wildflowers in abundance - the Fawn Lilies nearing the end of their brief blooming season, and the Shooting Stars by the thousands at Green Point, but we had come to see the Fairy Slippers and spent most of our time looking for them and photographing them, often lying on the ground or being discovered in some other strange position when others came past. The Fairy Slippers on this side of the mountains are all the rarer Western variety with a white rather than a yellow beard, Calypso bulbosa var. occidentalis. We usually found them scattered as single flowers, but in one location found clumps of three to five of them.
Note: for more pictures of the park and its wildflowers, see the following blog posts:
http://ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2011/07/washington-park.html
http://ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2011/05/washington-park-again.html
http://ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2011/04/first-native-orchids-of-year.html
http://ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2011/04/washington-park-anacortes.html
8 comments:
I went a couple weekends ago and felt the Calypso were exceptional and the Fawn Lily looked particularly weak.
The shooting stars had not yet budded up.
I am heading over to Vantge next weekend to catch the shrub steppe area in the Wild Horse wind farm.
We thought the Fairy Slippers were very good this year also, though last year was a good year, too.
We were seriously disappointed in the Fawn Lilies, as you were. There did not seem to be that many of them and the majority of them were already past their peak.
We're off to the Skagit Valley now.
Great series of Calypso shots, Ron! I especially like the photo of six plants grouped together - I've never seen such a large grouping.
The Calypso around Missoula, MT are blooming right now, as well. I've only seen the white beards on Calypso around here. --Clare
Thanks, Clare. There are a few locations where we've seen them growing in clumps. We're going to one of those places in a few weeks. The White-bearded variety is much more common west of the Rockies and is not found at all in the area west of the Cascades according to the information I have, but is found in BC, on Vancouver Island and up into Alaska. Both varieties are reported from Montana, but I have looked up localities.
Absolutely stunning, Ron! This is a mega-life species for myself but alas not something easy to see while living in southern Ohio. I had high hopes of seeing it on Flowerpot Island near the Bruce peninsula in Ontario, Canada last June but was just a week or so late. Orchid season is really starting to heat up here and I've been running around like crazy photographing and checking on them. Can't wait to see more posts from you! I should be flooding my blog with eastern orchid goodness soon as well :)
Thanks for the kind comments. You should come out this way so that we can show you the Fairy Slippers, especially our western variety. Look forward to seeing your posts, and more should be coming here soon.
Do you have a flickr account, Ron? I have recently started one (way behind the game, I know) and wanted to share the link so you could check it out from time to time. It allows me to quickly share and post photos instead of using my blog. See the work at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/algibson/
Hope you have one too to enjoy!
I do have a Flickr account, Andrew - used to be a link here but had trouble with the link and it is now deleted. I'll look up your account and establish contact with you on Flickr that way.
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