kentuckiense
Debaser
Whew. What a day. Perhaps my best day of botanizing ever. I'll go ahead and get straight to the jackpot.
Corallorhiza bentleyi
Bentley's coralroot was astutely discovered by Virginia's own Stan Bentley and subsequently described by Freudenstein in 1999. Its closest relative is the mexican Corallorhiza involuta. This is one of North America's rarest orchids, only found in roughly 30 stations in a handful of counties in the Appalachian Mountains of southern West Virginia and Virginia. It has a wide variety of forms including all combinations of cleistogamous vs. chasmogamous, red lip vs. yellow lip, and striped lip vs. non striped lip. This individual appears to be a chasmogamous striped red lip plant.
Corallorhiza maculata
Platanthera sp. "pale frilly"
There are three populations of this potentially new species/variety/hybrid. These plants differ from P. grandiflora in that they are a paler pink, have frilly lateral petals, have a faintly striped dorsal, and have a far frillier labellum. Most importantly, however, these plants bloom after P. grandiflora is spent. These plants are in stable populations that reappear each year and successfully produce juveniles. The natural hybrid P. x keenanii is generally a mule and fails to reproduce and generally disappears after a few years. Clearly, further investigation is needed to determine the history of these plants, but Paul Martin Brown will be publishing this as a new species sometimes in the fall or winter.
Corallorhiza bentleyi
Bentley's coralroot was astutely discovered by Virginia's own Stan Bentley and subsequently described by Freudenstein in 1999. Its closest relative is the mexican Corallorhiza involuta. This is one of North America's rarest orchids, only found in roughly 30 stations in a handful of counties in the Appalachian Mountains of southern West Virginia and Virginia. It has a wide variety of forms including all combinations of cleistogamous vs. chasmogamous, red lip vs. yellow lip, and striped lip vs. non striped lip. This individual appears to be a chasmogamous striped red lip plant.
Corallorhiza maculata
Platanthera sp. "pale frilly"
There are three populations of this potentially new species/variety/hybrid. These plants differ from P. grandiflora in that they are a paler pink, have frilly lateral petals, have a faintly striped dorsal, and have a far frillier labellum. Most importantly, however, these plants bloom after P. grandiflora is spent. These plants are in stable populations that reappear each year and successfully produce juveniles. The natural hybrid P. x keenanii is generally a mule and fails to reproduce and generally disappears after a few years. Clearly, further investigation is needed to determine the history of these plants, but Paul Martin Brown will be publishing this as a new species sometimes in the fall or winter.
