Eighteenth Orchid of the Season

Known both as the Sparrow's-egg Lady's Slipper and as Franklin's Lady's Slipper, Cypripedium passerinum is not found in Washington but is common further north.  We found these along the Richardson Highway to Valdez, Alaska.  They were near the end of their blooming season, but we found enough fresh flowers for photographs.  The species can grow to 60 cm tall but these were much shorter, less than 30 cm and growing in the open on the roadside.  There was one plant with two flowers, the flowers faded, but ordinarily the tiny flowers are found just one per flower spike.

Cypripedium passerinum

Cypripedium passerinum, known as Franklin's Lady's Slipper or the Sparrow's-egg Lady's Slipper, has flowers that are usually much smaller than the other Lady's Slippers in our area, around 5 cm and they look much smaller in proportion to the plant, which is usually around 35-40 cm.  The flowers are usually single with occasionally two to a stem.  They do not open widely either, the dorsal sepal nearly covering the lip on most flowers.  They are nevertheless very attractive little flowers, but they do not grow in Washington, in fact, they are recorded from only one mainland state, Montana.  We see them in the Canadian Rockies in British Columbia and Alberta.

July 3

(Canadian Rockies)

July 9

(Canadian Rockies)

Twelfth Week of the Native Orchid Season (2) - Liparis, Malaxis, Amerorchis, Listera, Platanthera and Cypripedium

June 23-29

What a week this was!  Not only did we see a lot of familiar orchid species on our way up to Edmonton (see part 1 of this post), but I managed to get out with Ben Rostron while we were in Edmonton to two natural areas and saw two new species as well as a rare variety of one I had seen many times before.  The day with Ben, the subject of this post, was one of the best orchid hunting days I've had in a long time.

The first place we visited was a fen where Liparis loeselii, the Fen Orchis, had recently been found, its first record for Alberta.  It is supposed to be native to Washington but I know of no locations in the state and had not seen it before.  It also grows in northern Europe and is quite small, the plants 5-20cm and the flowers around 1cm.  We found it growing with the Purple Pitcher Plant and other bog plants.

The second place was a natural area that had as many native orchids as we wanted to see, Platanthera huronensis, the Green Bog Orchis, thousands of the Large Yellow Lady's Slipper, Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens, the Sparrow's-egg Lady's Slipper, Cypripedium passerinum, and the Western Heart-leaved Twayblade, Listera cordata var. nephrophylla.

Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens

Cypripedium passerinum

Listera cordata var. nephrophylla

Another orchid we saw there is very common in British Columbia and Alberta, and we saw many of the Small Round-leaf Orchis, Amerorchis rotundifolia, with its tiny bird-like flowers.  What was very exciting, though, was finding (with directions from a friend) two plants of the rare lined-lip form, Amerorchis rotundifolia fma. lineata.  We looked for the all-white form also but did not find it.

Amerorchis rotundifolia fma. lineata

The real star of the day, however, was the tiny and rare (in the northwest) White Adder's-mouth, Malaxis brachypoda, or as it is sometimes known, Malaxis monophyllos var. brachypoda.  This species, too, is not found in Washington.  We found two plants in flower, one 12cm tall and the other only 5cm with tiny flowers that are 3mm in size, very distinctive with its single shiny leaf.

Notes:
(1) I did not take pictures of the Platanthera huronensis at either of the sites we visited having taken so many pictures of that species on the way to Edmonton.  These pictures can be seen in part 1 of this post.
(2) And, Ben, if you see this, thanks again for taking me around.