Two Orchids at Baker Lake

 

In July we went on an overnight backpacking trip with our oldest daughter to Baker Lake in western Washington.  It was a very wet trip and was not meant to be an orchid-hunting trip but we did find two orchids, Corallorhiza mertensiana, the Western Coralroot, shown above and below, and Neottia cordata var. nephrophylla, the Western Heart-leaved Twayblade, shown at bottom.

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)

Three Native Orchids in Mount Rainier National Park

We were out for several hours at Mount Rainier National Park on Saturday, March 30, with the Washington Native Orchid Society.  We did not have time for sightseeing but visited a number of locations looking for native orchids.  We found three, two that we had seen already this season and one that we had not yet seen and that is rather rare in the state.

The Early Coralroot, Corallorhiza trifida, was the latest addition to this season's sightings.  We found around a dozen stems in an area where we had found this species before.  Growing with them we found a few Western Fairy Slippers, Calypso bulbosa var., occidentalis, as well as a few of the reddish form of the Heart-leaved Twayblade, Listera cordata var. nephrophylla.

At another site and a higher elevation we found hundreds of Fairy Slippers and quite a few more Heart-leaved Twayblades, this time mostly the all-green form.  The green form is Listera cordata var. nephrophylla, and the reddish form is forma rubescens.  We looked for white Fairy Slippers in the area but did not find any, though we had seen them there before.

The Early Coralroot is the smallest of the Coralroots in our area, usually less than 30 cm tall with 1 cm flowers.  This species ranges across the northern USA and Canada and is found in Europe and Asia as well.  The North American Twayblades have all been reclassified as Neottias, so what we saw is more correctly, Neottia cordata var. nephrophylla.

Early Coralroot

Corallorhiza trifida

 Heart-leaved Twayblade, green form

Neottia cordata var. nephrophylla

 Heart-leaved Twayblade, reddish form

Neottia cordata var. nephrophylla fma. rubescens

Western Fairy Slipper

Calypso bulbosa var. occidentalis

Fifth Orchid of the Season and Others

The Fifth orchid we've found in bloom this season is Corallorhiza mertensiana, known as the Western or Merten's Coralroot.  This species is variable in color, the stems ranging from white, through yellow, pink and tan to purple.  The location where we first found it in bloom has the darkest color forms we've ever found, a deep reddish-purple, and has only that color form.  The other location we visited has every color form imaginable except this dark-colored form.  The other location has every color form imaginable, but they were just starting to bloom there.  At the second location only the darker color forms were starting to bloom, but I took one photo of the stems of a lighter color form, Corallorhiza mertensiana fma. pallida.  This species is often a challenge to photograph since it tends to grow on dark forest floors and if there is even a hint of a breeze, it is hard to get a good focus and exposure.

Corallorhiza mertensiana

 Corallorhiza mertensiana fma pallida

Along with this Coralroot we found a lot of the Western Spotted Coralroot, Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis in bloom.  They are at the peak of their season or just past it and in one of the locations we visited we photographed again the several spikes of the golden-stemmed form of this species,  fma. aurea.  There were also a number of plants of the red-stemmed form, fma. punicea. This is another species that we'll be seeing well into summer at higher elevations.  At another location we found some of the brown-stemmed form, fma. intermedia.

Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis

 Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis fma. aurea

Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis fma. punicea

Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis fma. intermedia

Washington has four species of Coralroots and three of the four are featured in this post.  The only not featured is Corallorhiza trifida, the Early Coralroot.  We saw a few more of the Striped Coralroot, but there were only a few stems.  It is difficult to know whether they are just very sparse this year or whether they are blooming at their usual time in spite of an early spring, with more of them coming later.  The few I saw were in full bloom and I found no sign of more, but I did not spend a lot of time looking either.

Corallorhiza striata var. striata

We also revisited the low-elevation site of the Heart-leaved Twayblade, Listera or Neottia cordata var. nephrophylla fma. rubescens in order to get some better photos and to give my wife the chance to see them - she had not been along when I photographed them the first time.  They were still in good form and we were able to get better photos, though this is a species we'll be seeing in different places for many weeks, especially at higher elevations.  We'll see, too, its green form, which is actually more common than the red form shown here.

The Fairy Slippers, Calypso bulbosa var. occidentalis, are nearly finished at lower elevations, many of the remaining flowers fading to an off-white, or withering at the end of developing seed pods or gone altogether.  They will, however, be starting to bloom at higher elevations and we should be seeing them well into June.  In fact, we'll be visiting some of those locations in a few weeks.  That's one of the advantages of living near the mountains - the flowering season of many plants including many of the native orchids is extended.

Calypso bulbosa var. occidentalis