In June we visited Michigan to see family and friends there. While in Michigan we went with one of our sons and his wife for a two day drive along the Michigan shore of Lake Huron. While driving some of the back roads and doing some hiking we were excited to see the Large Yellow Lady's Slipper in several different locations. We had not seen many orchids yet because of the covid outbreak and so were thankful that we could add these to our list of orchids for 2020.
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)
We hope to do more next year but we shall have to see since I have been very much busier as of late.
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.
