Three-birds orchids in South Carolina – Jones Gap State Park — 2015-08-05

I promise that this will be the last coverage of the Triphora trianthophora or Three-birds orchids — for this year, anyway. This is not because I’m getting tired of seeing them, it’s because there will be only a handful left to bloom in the Carolina mountains this season. I would venture to say that more than 90% of the available flower buds have already bloomed in the populations that I monitor. Today, I witnessed this season’s large wave of blooming at Jones Gap State Park in Greenville County, South Carolina. Finally, after years of photographing them in the Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, North Carolina, I was able to photograph them in my home state, and also my home county. My personal thanks go out to South Carolina State Park Interpretive Ranger, Tim Lee. This spring, I ran into him at Caesar’s Head State Park while I was photographing some wildflowers up there. Somehow (LOL!) the conversation came around to native orchids — imagine that! I told him about my favorite spot for Three-birds orchids in the Pisgah NF, and he told me about a population of them at Jones Gap State Park. Of course, I was all ears. He gave me pretty specific directions, so they were fairly easy to locate.

Yesterday, after photographing the ones in North Carolina, I swung by Jones Gap SP to check them out. I didn’t fully expect that they would be blooming on the same day, but orchids don’t read text books, so I never know. They were in full bud, and I felt quite sure that they would be in bloom the next morning (today). I was right. Usually, those plants of this species that are in the “immediate” area do bloom the same day — even if the populations are separated by a few miles. As the crow flies, the two populations are separated by about 15 miles.

So I got up early this morning and headed out to Jones Gap State Park. There is a bridge that is out on the main road, so I had to take a detour. I had hoped that my Atlanta friends would be able to join me on this trip, but life sometimes gets in the way, and I was by myself on the drive up to the park. Read and weep, Alan and Brad!

Three-birds orchid

Unlike the flowers at the Pisgah NF location, very few of the flowers had pinkish-purple petals — the large majority of them were of the common white form. However, that’s OK with me. I love them all.

When I arrived at the site around 9:00 am, they were just beginning to open, so I had to wait a while for them to be at their peak. I did take a few shots of the partially opened flowers, and here is one:

By about 10:30 am, they were as good as they were going to get, so I set up my camera equipment for some serious work. Here is a selection of images that should give you an idea of the nature of the plants at the Jones Gap SP site. The first is a plant with one blooming flower and a few unopened buds. There were not many plants left with unopened buds:

This next shot shows what the buds look like about a week before they will open:

Here is a plant with two open flowers and a seed capsule from last week’s minor flowering:

I did find one plant with three blooming flowers that had those beautiful pinkish-purple petals. Here are two different views of the same plant:

I also managed to find one plant with four blooming flowers! This is quite rare, at least in our region. The flowers were not quite fully open when I photographed it, and I failed to come back to it later when the flowers were open… 🙁

Finally, I will finish up with a small group of Three-birds orchids. Granted, this is not a large group, but I thought they were nice. Here are two different views of the same group:

You should know by now that I’m always excited to photograph our local native orchids, even if I have just photographed the same species the day before. I never seem to tire of seeing them in the wild. Three-birds orchid, especially, provides a number of challenges to the photographer. The first and foremost, of course, is being able to predict when they will be in bloom. As I have mentioned before, the flowers (when they decide to bloom) are open for only 6-7 hours on a single day, then they shrivel up. The second challenge is being able to get down on the ground (they are really tiny) with the camera and tripod. Actually, getting down is not a problem for me — getting up is the problem. And finally, choosing the best possible composition and orientation of the plant to bring out the best of the flowers. Of course, dealing with lighting, wind, and wet ground are a part of the mix, as well. So, if I manage to get a few reasonably good shots, it is quite gratifying. Even if I don’t get any good shots, just being out in the woods is a definite plus, and being able to see these beautiful wildflowers that are there for the discovering…

–Jim