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

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)

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.

Small Round-leaf Orchis (Galearis rotundifolia)

The Small Round-leaf Orchis was originally classified as Orchis rotundifolia since it is most closely related to that European genus, but was reclassified as Amerorchis in 1968 and more recently as Galearis. It is the only species in the genus and has no other close North American relatives.

This plant ranges from Alaska through Canada to Greenland, and south into the United States into Montana and Wyoming and from Minnesota eastward to Maine. Sadly, it is not found in Washington state.  It prefers open woodlands and boggy areas.

The plant is reported to grow to 35 cm tall, though the plants we have seen have all been much shorter, the tallest about 18 cm. The delightful bird-like or angel-like flowers are about 1-1.5 cm tall with 10-15 flowers per plant.  The plant has a single round leaf at the base.

There are various color forms, including a pure white form, but we have not seen all of these varieties (see below) and they are quite rare. The usual form, however, is quite abundant in some locations and we have seen them by the thousands in several areas.

We've found this orchid several times in British Columbia and Alberta. We saw it first in British Columbia off an access road where it was growing with Cypripedium parviflorum and Platanthera huronensis.  We've since seen it in the area of Edmonton, Alberta.

Another BC location is in Mount Robson Provincial Park, where it was growing just beyond the bridge south of the Kinney lake campground and along the lake and on the edge of the woods past the bridge and then again along the river in the Whitehorn campground and north to White Falls.

We've seen two color varieties of this species  the striped-lip form, Galearis rotundifolia fma. lineata, found on an orchid hunting trip near Edmonton with a friend, and the nearly white forms, Galearis rotundifolia fma. wardii and fma. immaculata, with only some pale coloring on the lip, seen along the Berg Lake Trail in Mount Robson Provincial Park.