Day 4 — Orchids on the “Rock” — Newfoundland — 2013-07-06

On this day, we had made prior plans to meet local residents Andrus Voitk and his wife Maria at the Lomond River Trail parking lot in Gros Morne National Park. Andrus and Maria wrote the definitive book on Newfoundland orchids called, Orchids on the Rock: The Wild Orchids of Newfoundland. It is a wonderfully illustrated and comprehensive book, and it was one of the things that piqued my interest in visiting Newfoundland. I had read much about the orchids in the area of the Lomond River Trail, and Andrus had volunteered to take us to a few of his favorite sites.

When Walter and I arrived at the meeting place (the parking lot at the trailhead), our flickr friend Chris Davidson was already there. He came over, greeted us, and asked if we wanted to see the Cypripedium reginae or Showy Lady’s-Slipper orchids that were blooming nearby. Well, that was the first clue that the day was going to be a good one.

Actually, I had seen a few blooming plants on the roadside just before we arrived at the parking lot, but I was not prepared for the sight that awaited us. We crossed the road and climbed the steep road bank. Here were dozens of gorgeous pink and white orchids in full bloom at the top of the hill:

These are not the dimutive orchids that we had been seeing so far on this trip. These plants were almost 3 feet (~90 cm) tall, and had flowers that were about 3 inches (7.5 cm) across! The petals were pure white and the lip pouches varied in color from light pink to very dark pink. Most of the plants sported a single flower, but quite a few of them had two flowers per stem:

I found myself asking, “Could it get any better than this?”. Well, actually, it could. Chris wasted no time in pointing out that one of the plants I was photographing was a plant that carried three flowers!:

We were still waiting for Andrus and Maria to arrive, so we crossed the road back to the parking lot, where Chris pointed out one really nice group of Showy Lady’s-Slipper orchids near the trailhead:

I told him that I was looking for a flower with a uniformly dark pouch, so we began looking in the immediate area. Soon, we found what I was looking for. We were to find a few more of them during the day, but this was definitely the best of the lot:

Here are shots of a few of the others we found along the trail:

I even found one with a decidedly striped pouch:

I had no sooner finished photographing the striped one when we heard car doors slam. Andrus and his “crew” had arrived. The “crew” included Andrus, his wife Maria, Michael Burzynski and his wife Anne Marceau, Henry Mann and his wife Phyllis. So, Walter, Chris, and I quickly made our way to join them in the parking lot. After exchanging Hellos and shaking hands, we set our plans for the rest of the day. Incidentaly, Michael has worked as a botanist with Parks Canada since the 1980s. Currently, he curates for the Gros Morne National Park herbarium. Henry Mann is retired from being a professor of biology and curator of the herbarium at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College – Memorial University of Newfoundland. We were definitely botanizing with some heavy hitters…

Here is a picture of Michael and Anne (left) and Andrus and Chris (right):

I had originally asked Andrus if he could show me three orchid species: the odd, yellow form of Corallorhiza striata found in only two places in Newfoundland, Listera borealis, another rare one, and Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis — a very tall order, I thought, but it turned out to be a “piece of cake” for Andrus and his crew.

So first, we decided to go for the odd form of Corallorhiza striata, known by some as Corallorhiza striata var. vreelandii forma eburnea. That’s a mouthfull, I realize. It is a confusing species in that it definitely fits the mold for Corallorhiza striata or Striped Coralroot orchid but refining the species begins to cause some confusion among many botanists. Suffice it to say, that things will eventually be resolved, but for the meanwhile, let’s just enjoy this gorgeous orchid.

I took dozens of images of these plants, and it is quite difficult to cull the lot, since each one is different than the others:

At this point, I have to state that some of these images were taken a couple of hours later at a large campground site just down the road from the trailhead parking log. Andrus and Michael had just found out about this additional site earlier in the week, and they wanted to see it for themselves. I felt rather odd pulling in to a campground to look for orchids, but Michael had previously cleared our visit with the campground owners. When we arrived at the particular numbered campground site, the “residents” were there cooking lunch on their grill. They greeted us with curious grins, and said that several others had been there to look and photograph over the past week. In fact, a bus load of tourists had found out about it somehow, and stopped to see what all of the fuss was about. The “resident” renter of the site said that she had thought about taking some of the plants home with her. This prompted Michael to “have a word of prayer” with her. He explained that these plants are extrememly rare and fragile, and that because of their fungal association, she would not be able to grow them at home. I believe she was finally convinced — let’s hope so…

From the campground, we travelled back up the highway to a site not far away. We pulled off on the edge of the road, gathered our gear, and headed down the embankment and into the dense, spruce woods. Barreling our way through the dense brush reminded me of how a moose might find its way through the woods. Soon, we were into an area of rather open woods. In just a few meters, we were shown a sight that I will not be able to easily forget — a huge, 2-foot (60 cm) stand of Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis or Summer Coralroot orchid:

I had only seen pictures of this gorgeous orchid species, and now I was face-to-face with it. Up close, it is just breathtaking:

The tiny tan and yellow flowers, the white lip spotted with deep magenta-purple, and the stem that is a dark, ruby red. This had really made my day. Here are some more shots of this orchid:

After catching our breath and finishing up with the photography, we packed our gear and went back to our cars. We made our way up the side road toward Lomond, where we went into the Killdevil Campground and descended a very old and deteriorating set of log steps to an area where the rare, Listera borealis or Northern Twayblade orchid had been seen:

(Left to right:) Michael Burzynski, Maria Voitk, Phyllis Mann, Walter Ezell, Andrus Voitk, Chris Davidson, Anne Marceau, and Henry Mann. Yours truly is behind the camera…

We did manage to find several plants, but they had all but gone to seed and were not very photogenic. However, due to its rarity in Newfoundland, I’ll post a shot of one of the plants:

Little did I dream that we would be seeing better specimens of this orchid farther north on our trip.

Well, we were all getting hungry so it was time to plan where we would eat. Andrus suggested that we head farther up that dirt road to a beach site along the Lomond River. Here is the “gang” sprawled out on the beach, enjoying ourselves and telling tall tales of hunting wild orchids:

(Left to right) Walter Ezell, Jim Fowler, Andrus Voitk, Maria Voitk, Phyllis Mann, Chris Davidson, Henry Mann, Anne Marceau, and Michael Burzynski. Photo courtesy of Maria, Michael, and others – a PhotoShop creation… 😉

We thanked Andrus and his crew for the gracious good time they had showed a bunch of “Yankees” from the states. Chris, Walter, and I decided that we would drive back to the parking lot and attempt to walk the 6 km (3+ miles) and see what other things we could find along the trail.

After about a mile, we began to see groups of another Spotted Coralroot orchid species, Corallorhiza maculata var. maculata. The flowers of this species are not quite as colorful as those of Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis, but we were quite pleased to see them:

We did manage to find another orchid species, but it was just in bud. Walter and I planned to revisit the site when we come through again the following week on our way back home.

We did find a few other interesting non-orchid species along the Lomond River Trail. The first of these is actually a carnivorous plant, Pinguicula vulgaris or Common Butterwort. However, I’m giving it another name, Man’s Best Friend. You see, it captures small insects on its sticky leaves, such as the very annoying, biting black flies that are so prevalent in the area. If you look closely at the image below, you will see hundreds of those pesky critters doomed in the clutches of that wonderful carnivorous plant:

Actually, the name Common Butterwort is quite appropriate, since we were able to see this species all over Newfoundland. It doesn’t seem to prefer any single habitat, being found in wet, mossy situations as well as on the windswept, forbidding limestone barrens farther north. Quite a neat plant to see in the wild.

Another plant we saw in abundance along the Lomond River Trail and in other places, as well is Linnea borealis or Twinflower. Aptly named, it has two beautiful pink flowers opposite each other on a short stem. After seeing a few plants scattered here and there in the deep spruce forest along the trail, we soon came upon an opening in the canopy which provided sunlight for dense masses of the plants. I had never seen them as thick as this:

What a great trail just brimming with lots of orchids and other native wildflowers.

That pretty much brought the day to a close for us. Many beautiful wild orchids were seen and good friends were made. This will definitely be a highlight (maybe the most colorful) of our Newfoundland vacation. But, there is more to come — many other places for us to discover and people to meet along the way…

— Jim