Another Orchid-hunting Trip

 

I went on a two-day orchid hunting trip and visited nine different locations.  I found orchids at all but two of the locations and it was very late in the season for the orchid I expected to find there.  These are the results of that two-day search for our native orchids.

At the first location I found the Eastern Fairy Slipper and its natural hybrid with the Western Fairy Slipper, Kostiuk's Hybrid Fairy Slipper.  The Fairy Slippers were very sparse this year and the area they were in had suffered from a windstorm that left numerous blowdowns and blocked trails.

Calypso bulbosa var. americana

Eastern Fairy Slipper

Calypso bulbosa x kostiukiae

Kostiuk's Hybrid Fairy Slipper

 

At the second location that had orchids I checked on a mixed population of Lady's Slippers.  There are that resemble the Mountain Lady's Slipper, flowers that resemble the  Northern Yellow Lady's Slipper and flowers that are clearly hybrids of the two in that population.

Cypripedium x columbianum

Columbia Hybrid Lady's Slipper

flowers that resemble Cypripedium montanum, the Mountain Lady's Slipper

flowers that resemble Cypripedium parviflorum, the Northern Yellow Lady's Slipper

flowers that are clearly hybrids of the two

 

At the third location I found the Mountain Lady's Slipper and the Spotted Coralroot.  The Spotted Coralroots were all the round-lipped variety, but included numerous yellow-stemmed plants.  This usually rare form is more numerous than the normal form in this location.

Corallorhiza maculata var. occidenttalis

Western Spotted Coralroot

 

Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis fma. aurea

Western Spotted Coralroot - gold-stemmed form

Cypripedium montanum

Mountain Lady's Slipper

 

At a fourth location there was another orchid I looked for but didn't find.  I did find more Western Spotted Coralroot, though far fewer than previous years.  The weather has been unusual and the Coralroots especially seem to have been affected, with fewer plants everywhere.

Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis

Western Spotted Coralroot

 

At a fifth location with orchids I found a few Mountain Lady's Slippers.  I also looked for Coralroots there and found none and for a small rare Lady's Slipper but did not find it, either.  The Mountain Lady's Slippers were at the peak of their bloom at this lower elevation, not the case higher up.

Cypripedium montanum

Mountain Lady's Slipper

 

The other locations were also place where I looked for the Mountain Lady's Slipper and found it, though at the higher elevations they were just starting to bloom.  I also found plants of the albino form, green and white instead of mahogany and white.  They were not fully open, however.

Cypripedium montanum

Mountain Lady's Slipper

 

Cypripedium montanum fma. praetertinctum

Mountain Lady's Slipper, albino form

 

The End of Another Season

Our 2016 native orchid season was considerably abbreviated by a trip to Australia, so we saw only a limited number of the species we usually visit and did not accomplish much of what we had intended for the season.  The high point was finding in Washington a species we had seen elsewhere but not in the state, Listera or Neottia borealis, the Northern Twayblade.  True to its name we found it in the northernmost parts of the state.

We also looked for and found again some rarities, particularly the natural hybrid of the two varieties of Fairy Slippers, the Eastern and Western Fairy Slippers, Kostiuk's Hybrid Fairy Slipper, Calypso bulbosa x kostiukiae, and the white form of the Western Fairy Slipper, Calypso bulbosa var. occidentalis fma. nivea.  Both of these were growing where we had found them previously and seemed well established in those locations.

We found some new sites for the Western Fairy Slipper and for the Early Coralroot, Corallorhiza trifida, the latter especially important since it is not common in the state of Washington.  These sites were on both sides of the Cascades and proof that the species is adaptable and quite widely distributed, though it is here near the southern end of its range, being much more common as one moves to the north. 

We missed a lot of species, however, and will have to look for some of them next year.  As always are plans are to look for new locations and to find in the state of Washington the species we have not yet seen there, especially Dactylorhiza viride var. virescens, the Long-bracted Green Orchis, and Platanthera obtusata var. obtusata, the Blunt-leaved Rein Orchis, and we have locations for both within the state.

Three Orchids near Wauconda

Another location I visited on May 20th, but much further north, was a site where the Eastern Fairy Slipper, Calypso bulbosa var. americana, grows in abundance, but I found it near the end of its bloom season and early like everything else.  This variety of the Fairy Slipper is very different from the Western Fairy Slipper, with a yellow beard on an otherwise nearly unspotted lip.  Nor does it grow west of the Cascades as does the Western Fairy Slipper.  I also found in the same location one plant still in bloom of Kostiuk's Hybrid Fairy Slipper, Calypso bulbosa x kostiukiae, a rare natural hybrid of the Eastern and Western Fairy Slippers.  It is also very distinctive, with a pale yellow beard, midway between the bright yellow and white of the two varieties and a finely spotted lip.  With these two Fairy Slippers there were also several stems of the Early Coralroot, Corallorhiza trifida.

Eastern Fairy Slipper

Calypso bulbosa var. americana

Eastern Fairy Slipper (pink form)
Calypso bulbosa var. americana fma. rosea

Kostiuk's Hybrid Fairy Slipper

Calypso bulbosa x kostiukiae

Early Coralroot

Corallorhiza trifida