It’s that time of year again… Three-birds orchids in the Pisgah National Forest — 2015-08-04

Today is the predicted date for the mass bloom of Triphora trianthophora or Three-birds orchid in the Pisgah National Forest. There have been a couple of cool days followed by a couple of warming days — this will usually bring on the blooming of a favorite orchid of mine, the Three-birds orchid. Actually, I was in the area yesterday, and I drove over to check on the status of the blooming. The flower buds were quite plump, and the color was showing on the outside of the buds, a great sign that blooming was just around the corner.

So I got up early this morning and headed out to the Pisgah National Forest (about 1.5 hours from home) so that I would be there when the flowers were at their freshest. They open about 9:00 am and close about 5:00 pm, so noon would be the peak of their beauty. I arrived and unloaded my camera equipment. I also sprayed really well around my pants legs and ankles to prevent chigger bites. Those suckers are out in large numbers this year, and their bite seems to affect me more severely each year. Anyway, I finished with my preparation and walked toward the orchid site.

Upon arriving, I scouted the site for the best plants — ones with three flowers. Although it is called Three-birds orchid, not all plants will have three open flowers when it blooms. Most will have two flowers or just a single flower with additional buds that will open on the next bloom cycle, which may be as long as two weeks away. I’ve mentioned, in a couple of my previous blogs, how the blooming of this orchid is temperature related, and that does make it somewhat difficult to know exactly when they will be in bloom. If you miss the wave of blooms, there’s always next time, unless it is the last wave of the year.

Here is an example of a three-flowered plant. The entire plant is only 6-8 inches (15-20 cm) tall, and the flowers are less than 1 inch (2.5 cm) wide:

Three-birds orchid

Not all of the Three-birds orchid flowers at this particular location have pinkish-purple petals, but many of them do. I think these are the prettiest, so I usually end up taking more images of these rather than the pure white ones. In addition, not all of the plants occur in clumps or clusters, although I did photograph one clump last year with about a dozen or more plants and many blooming flowers — that was a very unusual circumstance. More often than not, the plants occur as a single stem or two separate stems just next to each other. Here is an example of two plants next to each other – each plant having two open flowers as well as buds that will open on the next wave of flowering:

This next image shows a typical plant with one open flower and one bud. The color of the petals of this particular flower is a dark pinkish-purple, quite beautiful in my opinion, and about as dark as I’ve seen them:

What follows is merely a selection of the different color forms that I saw today. Some of these plants have three flowers, some have one, but each is special in its own way:

Not bad for a couple of hours work, eh? I still get all excited when I walk into the woods and see these in bloom. There are some who have stumbled across this orchid for the first time in the woods and think that those plants will be in bloom the next time they visit. No cigar! That will be true only if they plan ahead or are lucky enough to be there on the day when there is another mass blooming. I’m fortunate to live close enough and have access to daily temperature records of that area to be able to predict the blooming and visit the site during that time.

Dear Reader, you may be in store for more of these shots in the next day or so. I hope you don’t mind seeing additional images of the same species, but I have to take advantage of what is currently blooming. Thanks to my park ranger friend, Tim Lee, I will be making a visit to Jones Gap State Park in upper Greenville County, South Carolina. Recently, he shared with me a site in the park where he has seen them blooming in the past. Today, on my way back from the Pisgah NF, I stopped by to check out that site, and found many hundreds of plants with bulging buds. Last year, I promised my Atlanta friend, Alan Cressler, that I would tell him the next time a bloom was predicted. It’s a long drive for him, but maybe he will be able to join me in the morning…

Until next time,

–Jim