Native Orchids of Mount Robson Provincial Park

Mount Robson Provincial Park is one of our favorite places for hiking and backpacking and is conveniently located on the way to Edmonton, the home of one of our daughters.  Two summers, 2009 and 2010, we backpacked in the park for five days and the last two summers, 2011 and 2012, we've hiked there.  We've found it to have more native orchids than any other place we've hiked.

This post shows the different species and varieties we've found in the park, a total of nineteen, but we are fairly sure that there are five or six more that we have not seen.  Most of these we've seen flowering around the end of June and beginning of July at different elevations, but several do not bloom until later in the summer and we've had to make a point of hiking there in August to catch them.

The species and varieties we've found are:

Amerorchis rotundifolia, the Small Round-leaf Orchis

Calypso bulbosa var. americana, the Eastern Fairy Slipper

Corallorhiza maculata var. maculata, the Spotted Coralroot

Corallorhiza trifida, the Early Coralroot

Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens, the Large Yellow Lady's Slipper

Cypripedium passerinum, the Sparrow's-egg Lady's Slipper

Goodyera oblongifolia, the Giant Rattlesnake Orchis

Goodyera repens, the Lesser Rattlesnake Orchis

Listera borealis, the Northern Twayblade

Listera cordata var. cordata, the Heart-leaved Twayblade

Listera cordata var. cordata fma. viridens,
the green form of the Heart-leaved Twayblade

Piperia unalascensis, the Alaskan Piperia

Platanthera aquilonis, the Northern Green Bog Orchis

Platanthera dilatata var. dilatata, the Tall White Northern Bog Orchis

Platanthera dilatata var. albiflora, The Bog Candle

Platanthera huronensis, the Green Bog Orchis

Platanthera obtusata ssp. obtusata, The Blunt-leafed Rein Orchis

Platanthera orbiculata, the Pad-leaved Orchis

Platanthera stricta, the Slender Bog Orchis

There are two others we've seen in nearby areas, Cypripedium montanum and Coeloglossum viride var. virescens, the former to west of the park and the later to the east in Jasper National Park.  These almost certainly bloom within Robson as well.  We intend to look for them the next time we are in the area and have time to do some hiking, since we now know something of their habitats.

Cypripedium montanum, the Mountain Lady's Slipper

Coeloglossum viride var. virescens, the Long-bracted Green Orchis

There are probably a number of others within the confines of the park, though we have not seen them or seen any record of them.  They are fairly common species and are found in surrounding areas.  These are plants we would like to find within the park as well, though with several exceptions, we have seen them elsewhere and they are relatively common.

Corallorhiza mertensiana, the Western Coralroot

Corallorhiza striata var. striata, the Striped Coralroot

Listera convallarioides, the Broad-lipped Twayblade

Malaxis brachypoda, the White Adder's Mouth

Malaxis paludosa, the Bog Adder's Mouth

Spiranthes romanzoffiana, the Hooded Ladies' Tresses

Amerorchis rotundifolia near Kinney Lake

Small but showy is this little gem of a native orchid.  It is only 15 cm tall, and even where it grows in masses of hundreds of plants would go unnoticed because of its size, but a closer examination shows its lovely spotted, angel- or ballerina-like flowers.

Amerorchis rotundifolia is more closely related to European orchids than to our other North American species, but ranges across Canada and the northern United States and is often abundant where found, though it is considered "rare and local" by some.

In the area around the Kinney Lake campground, a relatively flat area of scrubby open woodland and where both Cypripedium parviflorum and Cypripedium passerinum are abundant, this species is also abundant, growing by the thousands and perhaps even millions.

Where we have found it we have also always found Cypripediums, but in this location it is so abundant that it is impossible to step off the trail without crushing some of the plants.  Many of the flowers were starting to go by, but there were still many in full bloom.

Cypripedium passerinum at Kinney Lake

Traveling through Mount Robson Provincial Park and Jasper National Park along the Yellowhead Highway on our way to Edmonton to visit family, we took some extra time and stopped in the area of the Berg Lake Trail in Mount Robson PP.  My wife had a bad headache and stayed in the car to sleep while I hiked up the trail for about 7 km to Kinney Lake to see which orchids were blooming.

I saw fifteen different native orchids and varieties, but this one, the Sparrow's-egg Lady's Slipper is still one of my favorites and I was fortunate to find a few of them still in bloom at this late date.  Last year we were a week earlier and they were all finished but a cold and wet spring has delayed everything in the Pacific Northwest, in this case to our advantage.

Many of these lovely orchids can be found in a couple of areas near Kinney Lake and I found again several very large clumps, but only a few flowers that were still perfect.  Many had been ruined by the rain and quite a number were already pollinated and gone by.  In spite of the mosquitoes I managed to get some pictures with the dew still on the flowers.

The flowers are on rather tall spikes but are themselves quite small, surprisingly small, I would think, to someone who had not seen them before.  They are, however, very delicate and though the dorsal sepal often lies forward over the pouch, have beautiful spotting in the pouch and a lovely yellow and red-spotted staminode.  The name Sparrow's-egg fits them beautifully.