More Stream Orchids

While in the Olympics, first with several friends and then with the Native Orchid Society, we visited some new sites for Epipactis gigantea, the Stream Orchid or the Chatterbox, and also investigated another new site.  We found hundreds of them in an area where we have only previously known of a few plants, and since this species is relatively rare in Washington, it was good to know that it is flourishing in this location.  We were disappointed, however, to find that they were nearly finished flowering in all the locations and that in one location the deer had eaten most of the flowers.  The species is one of our more attractive orchids both in the color of the flowers and their size.  The plants grow to 100 cm though the plants we saw were much shorter, and the flowers are 3 cm across.  The plant is invariably found in wet locations, in this case along the edge of an inland lake and well deserves its name, Stream Orchid.