Two Color Forms of Galearis rotundifolia

While orchid hunting in Kootenay National Park in British Columbia we found two color forms of Amerorchis rotundifolia now Galearis rotundifolia.  The ordinary form has a spotted lip (see photo below) but these two forms are different.  Fma. lineata has a lip with heavy purple "lines" and fma. immaculata has a pure white lip.  I had seen fma. lineata before but had never seen fma. immaculata.

Galearis rotundifolia fma. immaculata

 Galearis rotundifolia fma. lineata

In addition to these forms we found a form, not named, but probably fma. lineata, with a lip that ws almost solid purple.  There are other color forms as well, some of which we've seen and some not.  There is a pink-flowered form, an all-white form and a form with green on lip and very faint pinkish-purple markings.  Some effort is required to examine the plants for these different forms but the effort is often rewarded since they often grow mixed in with the ordinary spotted form of the flowers.

Galearis rotundifolia is a small terrestrial orchid, generally around 15 cm with 2 cm flowers, with up to 15 flowers per inflorescence.  It easily goes unnoticed but up close is very beautiful with the flowers resembling little angels.  When found it is often found in abundance with hundreds of plants in an area.  It prefers slightly shady forest locations that have plenty of water and is widespread.

Galearis rotundifolia

Some Name Changes

There have been a number of name changes recently among our native orchids, mostly changes of genus, that have shuffled many of the orchids back into older genera.  Most of this taxonomic revision appears to have been done by Richard Bateman.  Whether these names will stick remains to be seen, but at least for now these appear to be the current names.

First, Coeloglossum viride var. viridis, the Frog Orchis or Long-bracted Green Orchis, is now once again Dactylorhiza viridis var. virescens.

Second, all the Listeras have been moved back to the genus Neottia.  This involves a total of four species from the Pacific Northwest.

Neottia borealis

Neottia cordata

Neottia banksiana

Neottia convallarioides

Third, all the Piperias, five species, have been moved back into the genus Platanthera, with Piperia candida changed to Platanthera ephemerantha.

Platanthera unalascensis

Platanthera elegans

Platanthera transversa and Platanthera elongata

Platanthera ephemerantha

Fourth, Malaxis monophyllos var. brachypoda seems now to be the accepted name for Malaxis brachypoda in spite of differences between that species and its Eurasian counterpart.

Fifth, the Small Round-leaf Orchis, Amerorchis rotundifolia, is now Galearis rotundifolia, a completely new genus for this species.

It is sometimes hard to keep up with the changes and to remember them, especially because the names seem to be in a continual state of flux and may be different again tomorrow.  In any case, if you are looking for a particular species always check for synonyms.

Galearis rotundifolia fma. wardii

The Small Round-leaf Orchis, Galearis rotundifolia, has a number of color forms.  We always look for these when we find this species, though some of the forms are quite rare and hard to find.  Hiking the Berg Lake trail in the Canadian Rockies this summer, the species was finished at lower elevations but we found it in abundance higher up and among the many plants we saw we found a couple of plants that had white flowers instead of the usual pink, but that were not completely white, the lip showing faint pink markings along with a green spots at the base of the lip.  This is a named form, Galearis rotundifolia fma. wardii.

Galearis rotundifolia

This species was once classified as Amerorchis.  It is closely related to the European genus Orchis and was once classified as part of that genus.  Under either name, it is the only such species in the North America.  It does not, however, grow in Washington, though it grows in Idaho and Montana and other northern states further east.  It is not a large plant, growing to 20 cm tall with 1.5 cm flowers.  Where it is found, however, it often grows in profusion, carpeting the ground.  We have been in places where it grows so thickly it is difficult to walk without stepping on plants.  It has a number of different color forms one of which we found this summer and which will be the subject of a future post.

July 8

(Canadian Rockies)

 July 10

(Canadian Rockies)