Upstate New Hampshire – Day 2 of the Native Orchid Conference symposium field trips — 2015-06-04

As promised, this is the report for Day 2 of the Native Orchid Conference symposium field trips. Yesterday’s blog covered a side trip Walter Ezell and I took to scenic Mt. Washington on our way to the last scheduled field trip for the day. However, I want to add to this blog entry a trip that we made after the presentations on June 3 when we made a side trip to Jericho State Park outside of Berlin, New Hampshire. Pamela and Gary Van Velsir had reported seeing a large clump of the white form of Cypripedium acaule or Pink Lady’s-slipper orchid just next to the road in a power line clearing. Of course, we had to see what they were talking about, so we drove the 7 miles (11 km) to Berlin and Jericho State Park to check it out. The directions were spot-on, and we found the clump beside the road with no problem. What they said was right — the clump had 13 blooming stems! It would be the largest clump of these gorgeous orchids that we would see on this trip. Here are a couple of shots of this amazing clump:

Pink Lady’s-slipper orchid (white or alba form)

Pink Lady’s-slipper orchid (white or alba form)

As I mentioned at the onset, we were on our way to the last scheduled field trip location, Tin Mountain which is near Albany, New Hampshire. After leaving Mt. Washington, we made it to the Tin Mountain Conservation Center where we met our guides, Diane Allen and Paul Hines. They are members of the Native Orchid Conference and had volunteered to be guides for the short hike into the area where the rare, Isotria medeoloides or Small Whorled Pogonia are found.

There is a great deal of information in an orchid’s botanical name. First there is the genus, Isotria. It comes from the Greek words, isos, meaning “equal,” and treis, meaning “three.” It refers to the equal length of the flower’s three sepals. The epithet, “medeoloides”, comes from the genus, Medeola and the Greek suffix oides, meaning, “looks like”. So, this orchid name says, “Three equal sepals and looks like Medeola virginiana“. Medeola virginiana is an understory plant whose leaves resemble those of Isotria medeoloides. Here they both are with Isotria medeoloides on the left and Medeola virginiana on the right:

It’s not surprising that many people mistake Medeola virginiana or the common Indian Cucumber Root for the extremely rare Isotria medeoloides. In fact, the guides asked if we would aid them in searching the immediate area for undiscovered plants. It became rather frustrating with all of the Medeola virginiana among the handful of Isotria medeoloides. Just when I thought I had found one, it turned out to be the other… Having said that, a few new orchid plants were actually discovered. Here are some additional shots of the Small Whorled Pogonia we photographed at the Tin Mountain site:

In the set immediately above, the image on the right is of an Isotria medeoloides with two flowers. This is not so rare as you might think, but we saw only a few of them at the Tin Mountain site.

In the image above, that shadow on the orchid leaf is from a fern frond. There was just a bit of sunlight peeking through the tree canopy, and I thought it made an interesting shot, so I didn’t block it out. I generally do not like to take photographs of plants in dappled shade/sunlight. It’s too difficult to even out the lighting, but this next image contains just that, and I thought it might make an interesting shot:

We finished up at the Tin Mountain site and said goodbyes to friends who we would probably not see again until the next NOC symposium. Seeing those folks again is almost as good as seeing new native orchid specimens. It was time to head back to Manchester, New Hampshire where we would leave the next morning to fly back to Greenville, South Carolina. But first… we wanted to check out one last site where Jim and Kathi Hayward had seen a large group of Pink Lady’s-slipper orchids while driving around looking for a place to hike. This site is on the Kancamagas Highway, west of Conway, New Hampshire. It is quite scenic and follows several river systems along its path west from Conway to its intersection with I-93 near Lincoln, New Hampshire.

About two-thirds of the way west, we found the spot Jim and Kathi had told us about. Many of the orchids on the hillside were going past peak bloom, being bleached out by sunlight. However, we did find one area where there were a good number of fairly fresh Pink Lady’s-slipper orchids to photograph. Most were a moderate shade of pink with just a few of a much lighter shade. We did not find any of the white-flowered form at this spot. Here are some images of the ones we saw:

There were also a number of paired flowers which lined up nicely for a photograph:

But to me, the most interesting flowers at this spot were the couple of ones that were almost white with just a blush of pink on the lip. These had almost straight petals which were marked with light green and reddish-brown — a lovely pairing of colors. They do not quite qualify to be called the white form, so I’ll call them Pink Lady’s-slipper orchids:

A lovely end to another great orchid adventure. What began as a symposium fraught with perils — would the Lady’s-slipper orchid plants be in bloom?, would basing the theme on a single orchid species work out?, would there be additional orchid species in bloom? — everything worked out perfectly! We owe Jean Stefanik much gratitude for all of the hard work she and the other volunteers put into making this symposium a success. In addition, there were a number of self-guided side trips that provided the attendees with vistas they could not find anywhere else. The Native Orchid Conference is a great organization whose purpose is “to foster the study, conservation and enjoyment of the native orchids of the United States and Canada.” Its membership is open to anyone and everyone who is interested in studying native orchids. Click Here to learn more about the organization and to become a member.

Until next time…

–Jim