Heliotrope Ridge

 

2020 has not been a good year for native orchids, mostly because of covid.  We have not been able to do the hiking we usually do and many of our hikes have been in areas that were not shut down but had few or no native orchids.  We did manage a hike in the North Cascades to Heliotrope Ridge near Mount Baker but saw only three orchids, a Twayblade, which we saw along the trail and two Platantheras, which we saw at the traihead in a boggy area.

 

Neottia cordata var. nephrophylla (Western Heart-leaved Twayblade)

Platanthera stricta (Slender Bog Orchis)

Platanthera dilatata var. dilatata (White Bog Orchis)

Orchids at Annette Lake

Our final orchid trip for the year was Annette Lake where we stopped to look for Platanthera orbiculata, the Pad-leaved Orchis.  Annette Lake is one of the few locations we know for this striking orchid.  We found a few plants, fewer than we had seen on previous visits and those we saw were not yet in bloom.  We also saw a few other orchids.

Platanthera orbiculata (Pad-leaved Orchis

Corallorhiza mertensiana (Western Coralroot)

 

 Neottia banksiana (Northwestern Twayblade)

 

Neottia cordata var. nephrophylla (Heart-leaved Twayblade)

Platanthera stricta (Slender Bog Orchid)

2017, A Missed Year

 

2017 was a missed year for us as far as native orchids were concerned. I was in the hospital four times from March through August and did not really start feeling better until January of 2018.

Back on March 22 I went in to emergency at the local hospital with what I thought and the doctors first thought was appendicitis. An abdominal drain was put in to drain off the expected infection with an appendectomy scheduled several weeks later. The abdominal drain, however, produced no signs of infection but rather a kind of mucous and I was sent on to a specialist in Seattle who diagnosed the problem as mucinous neoplasms of the appendix, basically a tumor of the appendix that was producing a mucous-like substance that would in time strangle my organs and that could also have been cancerous. I had surgery on May 9 and had my appendix, part of my colon, gall bladder, omentum and peritoneum removed and was in the hospital recovering until May 24th (15 days). Thankfully, there were no signs of cancer.

While recovering from the surgery at home I ended up back in the hospital the end of June with blood clots in left leg and in my lungs. After spending several days in the hospital and being prescribed blood thinners I was sent home again and began the recovery from that problem.

Then the beginning of August I was back in the hospital, first in Bellingham and then after being transferred, in Seattle, this time for an obstructed bowel, the result of scar tissue. That stay lasted a week before the obstruction cleared and again I was sent home and have been home since gradually regaining my strength.

As a result of the surgeries and lengthy recovery I retired and we moved to Spokane, Washington, to be near our handicapped son.

The only native orchids I photographed in 2017 were a couple of orchids in Hyalite Canyon, Montana, and Yellowstone National Park.  We went on a family vacation to the Black Hills in July while I was recovering from surgery and bloodclots and we took two of our grandchildren back to Washington with us for the rest of the summer, stopping in the area of Bozeman, Montana, for a few days.  My father grew up in that area.  We also went on to Yellowstone National Park with them before heading to Washington and I photographed a few orchids in both places.

Hyalite Canyon, Montana

Platanthera dilatata var. albiflora (White Bog Orchid)

Yellowstone National Park

Platanthera dilatata var. albiflora (White Bog Orchid)

Platanthera x estesii (Estes' Hybrid Bog Orchid)

Platanthera stricta (Slender Bog Orchid)

Piperia (Platanthera) unalascensis (Alaskan Piperia)

Spiranthes romanzoffiana (Hooded Ladies' Tresses)

Twenty-ninth Orchid of the Season and Others

Chamisso's Orchid, Platanthera chorisiana, is one of our smallest native orchids and very hard to find.  In our area these grow in a boggy area among the sedges and at the edge of the bushes and shrubs.  Both plant and flowers are the same green as the grasses and sedges, too.  When I went to visit them they were finished blooming and so I've also included an older photo of the species.  They were 15 cm tall or less and the tiny flowers are less than 1 cm and do not open widely.  It grows at high elevations or northern latitudes.

Platanthera chorisiana

Growing in the same area were the Sierra Rein Orchis, Platanthera dilatata var. lecostachys, the Slender Bog Orchis, Platanthera stricta, and the Hooded Ladies'-tresses, Spiranthes romanzoffiana.  All of these were nearing the end of their blooming season as well, especially Platanthera stricta.  All of these plants like wet areas and sedge mat where they were found is always wet, but even there they were earlier than normal, due to an early spring, little snowfall in the mountains, and a hot dry summer.

Platanthera dilatata var. leucostachys

Platanthera stricta

Platanthera dilatata var. leucostachys and Platanthera stricta

Spiranthes romanzoffiana