“Orange Day” – Lilies and Orchids (and a bit of botanical sexual activity) in Transylvania County, North Carolina — 2015-07-31

Although I posted images of Platanthera ciliaris or Yellow Fringed orchid in my last post, they were not yet in full bloom. So, I made another trip up to the Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, North Carolina hoping to catch them in full bloom. On the way, I made a stop by a roadside site in upper Greenville County where there were a couple of Lilium michauxii or Carolina Lily also known as Michaux’s Lily in bloom. I was hoping to be able to photograph it before it withered. Since the basic color palette for these specific wildflowers is orange, I named this post, “Orange Day”. BTW, Yellow Fringed orchid is also called Orange Fringed orchid by some, but I will use the former name in this post, since it is the more frequently used common name:

Carolina Lilly

Yellow Fringed orchid

You may have already noticed that the Carolina Lily in the first image, above, hosts a Crab spider. It is hiding in the center of the flower under the petals hoping to catch a pollinator. I have seen Papilio glaucus or Eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies pollinating this lily species, but I wonder if that Crab spider is strong enough to catch one of those large butterflies. Here is a close-up image of the Crab spider:

Finishing up with the Carolina Lily, I headed toward the Pisgah National Forest. It’s only 1.5 hours from home, so making it a day trip is not a problem for me. The drive up scenic Highway 276 is always a treat, because there is usually something to photograph along the way. There is a turn off which leads to some interesting wildflowers in certain seasons. Today, I went to a spot which has provided many Yellow Fringed orchid plants in previous years. Today, it did not disappoint. They can be found just beside the road on a hillside covered with a yellow daisy-like wildflowers — Helianthus angustifolius or Swamp Sunflower, I think. In any case, the Yellow Fringed orchids were large and in great shape:

Here is a shot of the orchids surrounded by other wildflowers:

For me, they were in perfect bloom — open flowers almost all the way to the top with just a few unopened buds:

It was now time to head up to Brevard. On the way back to the junction of this road with Highway 276, I spotted some color just off the roadside. It turned out to be about a half-dozen Carolina Lilies! One plant even had two blooms:

The color is quite variable with some flowers being almost yellow while others are orange or even bright red:

In the shot, above left, you can see last year’s seed capsule. Several of the plants were growing next to last year’s dried seed capsules. That’s a good sign that they are being pollinated, and that there will probably be more plants at this site in the near future.

This species differs from the similar, Lilium superbum or Turk’s-cap Lily in several ways. One is the shape of the leaf. But the easiest way to tell them apart is by looking at the inside base of the petals. Lilium superbum has a dark green chevron-shaped patch at the base of the petals whereas Lilium michauxii does not. Lilium superbum can have up to 15-20 flowers on a 9-foot (~3 meters) flower stalk. Lilium michauxii is seldom over 3 feet (1 meter) tall and has, at most, two flowers.

On the way up Highway 276, I noticed a number of the yellow/orange spikes of the Yellow Fringed orchids. However, there was absolutely no place to pull off the road to photograph them. In a good bloom year, it is easy to spot these beautiful orchids along the highway to Brevard.

I finally reached the site of the Yellow Fringed orchids that I had seen in bud a week before. There were several groups of these orchids with as many as a dozen or more in a group. One flowering plant, in particular, was standing alone on the hillside, so I decided to photograph it to show the entire plant in flower:

I managed to get a few group shots of these orchids:

One particular Yellow Fringed orchid plant was in full sun, and it seemed to have the most dense inflorescence of all of the other plants. I suppose that being in direct sunlight for most of the day plays a part in this, but that is pure speculation. Most of the other plants were in partial shade for most of the day:

Just across the gravel road, there were some Spiranthes lacera var. gracilis or Southern Slender Ladies’-tresses orchids still in bloom. I had seen them last week and knew right where to look for them:

As I approached the first plant, I saw a Bombus species or Bumble bee working the flowers. Hoping to catch it with pollen attached to its proboscis, I hurriedly set up my camera equipment. But before I was able to capture it on the flowers, it decided that it did not like my presence and flew off. But just before it flew out of the image, I managed to capture a fuzzy picture of it turning away (image upper left).

The large percentage of flowers of the Slender Ladies’-tresses orchids at this location are arranged in a fairly tight and uniform spiral. After looking around a bit, I managed to find a specimen with flowers in a secund arrangement. Secund is defined as “arranged on one side only”. This is not an unusual arrangement for some of the Spiranthes orchid species, but it is unusual for this orchid species — at least at this location:

In the image, above left, you can see a blurry shape in the background. That is a Yellow Fringed orchid just behind the Southern Slender Ladies’-tresses orchid. Also notice that the Southern Slender Ladies’-tresses orchid is not completely secund, as it does have a bit of a spiral at the top of the inflorescence. This particular image will also give you some idea of the nature of the exceedingly slender (thus the common name) stem of this orchid. It is quite a challenge to photograph the flowers of this orchid species if there is any wind at all, no matter how light the breeze might be.

As I was finishing with these dainty orchids, I noticed that there was what looked like a Battus philenor or a Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly feverishly working the flowers of the Yellow Fringed orchids across the road. I hurriedly gathered my camera equipment and rushed across the road to attempt to capture the pollination in progress. Not having much time to change the settings on my camera, I failed to capture the process without some movement in the image. However, you can fairly easily see the pollinia (male flower parts) attached to the compound eyes of the butterfly. There are only two pollinia produced by each flower, so it is obvious that the pollinator has visited many flowers in its journey. I count at least 10 pollinia attached to this butterfly.

The Yellow Fringed orchid has evolved to present its pollinia to its preferred pollinator so that it attaches to the pollinator’s compound eyes. This method counts on the pollinator to touch the exceedingly sticky pads on the ends of the pollinia, thus allowing the pollinia to be extracted from the sheathes that hold the pollinia to the flower. When the pollinator visits another flower, the pollinia are positioned in a way that will allow them to brush up against the stigma (female flower part) of the orchid.

In the image, above left, the butterfly is positioning itself so that it can stick its long proboscis into the nectar tube to withdraw nectar. In the image, above right, the pollinator is as far into the flower as it can go in order to probe the nectar tube for nectar. In doing so, it has its head butted up against the part of the column that contains the pollinia. The pollinia will stick to anything that touches the sticky pads on the ends of the pollinia. In the case of the butterfly, they will stick to its compound eyes. Apparently, this does not cause any undue discomfort or overly obstructive vision problems, because the pollinator manages to go about its task with ease.

Side note: I did see a number of Bombus species or Bumble bees visiting the flowers with more than a bit of interest. I speculate that the bees are getting nectar that is left behind at the orifice of the nectar spur by the butterfly. Since the bees are incapable of inserting their short proboscis appendages far enough into the spur to get to the nectar, I suspect that they are just “cleaning up” after the butterflies.

This was another great day out in the field surround by nature’s beauty. How intricate and mysterious are the ways that nature has devised to carry on its cycles. As each year progresses, we are able to grope our way to understanding more and more about how things work. I really wish more people appreciated these processes in a way that would help to preserve the local “hot spots” of beauty that surround us.

But it would not take much to destroy these fragile roadside sites, and it would take many years, if it were even possible, to recreate them. One of my fears — and it is a fear, for me — is that one day I will revisit this site and find that the fragile and delicate roadside margin where these plants live and grow will be plowed under to expand the width of the roadway. This site is in the middle of nowhere, but it provides for a surprising amount of traffic for hikers, campers, and fishermen, also for commercial traffic. I was amazed at the number of vehicles I saw on this week day that had advertisement for electrical, plumbing, and other types of retail commerce plastered on the sides of the trucks and vans that passed by me as I photographed the wildflowers. The road is loaded with potholes and is narrow and steep, so I am a bit confused why there is any commercial traffic on this winding, gravel road. Perhaps the drivers are hikers or fishermen that are just taking the day off to enjoy nature in the same way I do, but I am not convinced of that. But for now, these places exist for us to enjoy — and that I will do as long as they are there. Enough philosophizing for now…

–Jim