Native Orchids of the Pacific Northwest and the Canadian Rockies (and Elsewhere)

Monday, May 11, 2020

Orchids on Fidalgo Island

Because of the covid outbreak were not able to visit many of our favorite orchid hunting location this year. Most of the state parks and national forests were closed until late in the summer and the city parks also. We had to do most of our hiking in areas where there were no orchids and that were close to home. We did manage to visit Washington Park in Anacortes in late May but by that time the Fairy Slippers were nearly finished and we only saw a couple of them along with a few Coralroots.

Calypso bulbosa var. occidentalis (Western Fairy Slipper)

Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis (Western Spotted Coralroot)

Monday, October 28, 2019

End of the Season Summary

2019 was another year in which we did a lot less hunting of native orchids than in years past. In October of 2017, after major surgery, I retired and we moved to eastern Washington near Spokane. We bought a house that was a short sale and spent a great deal of our spare time in 2018 and 2019 working on the house and getting it into livable shape, most of the work done by one of our sons who is a builder. We also had our daughter and son-in-law move to Spokane in early 2019 and they lived with us for about four months.

We did manage a long trip through Washington, Oregon and into northern California, visiting many of our favorite orchid sites along the way. I also led a field trip for the Washington Native Plant Society but it was a very dry spring and summer and there was not much in bloom at that time. We saw nothing we had not seen before but did see some rarities including the albino form of the Mountain Lady's Slipper (shown above), the hybrid of the Mountain Lady's Slipper and the Northern Yellow Lady's Slipper and the very rare hybrid of the two varieties of the Fairy Slipper.

We hope to do more next year but we shall have to see since I have been very much busier as of late.

Monday, July 1, 2019

Orchid Hunting in Northern California and Oregon

Continuing our trip through Washington, Oregon and northern California, we visited a favorite site in California where we photographed both the Few-flowered Rein Orchis, Platanthera sparsiflora, and the California Lady's Slipper, Cypripedium californicum, both of which have a decided preference for wet, serpentine soils. We found both in abundance and also found a few Phantom Orchids, Cephalanthera austiniae. At a site in Oregon on our way back we found Epipactis gigantea, the Stream Orchid or Chatterbox.

Platanthera sparsiflora

Few-flowered Rein Orchis

Cypripedium californicum

California Lady's Slipper

Cephalanthera austiniae

Phantom Orchid

Epipactis gigantea

Stream Orchid

Friday, June 28, 2019

Orchid Hunting in the Cascades

We made a long trip through Washington, Oregon and northern California recently, and spent some time orchid hunting. We looked for and found seven orchids in Washington, Epipactis gigantea, the Stream Orchid or Chatterbox, so named for its love of lake and stream sides and for its hinged lip, which moves in the breeze, and Cypripedium montanum, the Mountain Lady's Slipper. The Epipactis, though rare in Washington, we found by the thousands in the location we visited. The Lady's Slipper was also abundant and we found both the very dark form with the purple-stained lip (fma. welchii) and the albino form (fma. praetertinctum). In the same place we found the Mountain Lady's Slippers we also found Platanthera unalascensis, the Alaskan Piperia. At a third location we found Platanthera dilatata, the Bog Candle, and at a fifth location Cephalanthera austiniae, the Phantom Orchid and Corallorhiza maculata, the Spotted Coralroot, both red-stemmed and yellow stemmed varieties, along with a few stems of Corallorhiza striata, the striped Coralroot, both the ordinary variety and the smaller-flowered var. vreedlandii.