orchid trip day two part two

[cnycharles]

I know I said day two would be two parts, but there'll be three instead. Just too many pics!

we next went to a nature conservancy preserve out on the south fork of long island, somewhat near montauk point. there are two populations of a native orchid that seems to have relationships to two other natives, namely platanthera blephariglottis and platanthera cristata. paul brown has described these populations as a new species, platanthera pallida. others say that it is just a brighter version of platanthera cristata. there are strong feelings attached to the many positions. as I am not a taxonomist, I can only take pictures and state my opinions based on my own observations (granted, that many others have had many more observations than I have, but I feel fairly certain to be relatively unbiased other than I like it that calling it platanthera pallida would make it an orchid endemic to new york state! looking at what has been written and using my own judgement, it looks like a population made up of former x canbyi and possibly lots more of each parent mixed in along the way, and is on it's way to being it's own species at some point, or at least a different declared variety or subspecies. I definitely doesn't look like 'just a pale cristata', and from what I've seen of tropical orchids, naming of them and what little can make an orchid a new species or variety, this definitely should have different status than cristata. If this were a cristata habitat, then why aren't there normally-colored cristata growing here or nearby? there are normal cristata growing a few miles to the west, so there should be orange ones here in the dunes, or at least a tremendous color variation between individuals, like seen in hazelton, pa. where blephariglottis and ciliaris are both found, with lots of hybrids of every color variation found in between

I'm sure there are as many opinions as there are people, but the bottom line is that they are beautiful orchids that don't care a whit what we call them, as long as we don't dig, bulldoze or pick them

I love this threadleaf sundew, that grows in the lowest spots between the dunes. In this spot, it grows right with the pallida though in other areas there are many pallida but no sundew. There are other sundews here but very tiny.

ken surveying some platanthera populations underneath the pitch pines

... and yes, it was very hot and humid there my bug spray was washing off of me minutes after I put it on, and the mosquitos were hovering constantly looking for a weak spot; staying a few yards away from the trees and shade helped a bit plus there was more breeze there

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

They definitely are different! Ah, the naming of things is a human institution happening in world ruled by forces beyond our scope, so what the heck, call 'em what you like! Nice color to the flowers - very soft. I've not seen any Platenthera like it of the many hundreds (thousands?) I've seen down south. It is also cool to see the D. filiformis growing in the dunes like that! I've only seen them in seepage bogs and wet flatwoods, never in a "dry" pine forest. Must be lots of subterranean moisture there.

Very cool, thanks for all of these adventures!

 

[SlipperFan]

I feel like I'm a little butterfly riding on your shoulder. Thanks for the tour, Charles.

 

[cnycharles]

thanks, dot. I'm glad that people like to 'ride along' and enjoy. actually a few years back I was in remsen bog and a skipper landed on my shirt and was taking in water and minerals (since the shirt was soaked), and even let me take a picture of it

kc, the orchids are in the lowest sections of the dunes, and the sundew are in the absolute lowest spots, actually at or below sea level, so there likely is water seeping in there all the time. I checked out a level of trees and other bushes that were two or three feet higher on a level than where the platantheras were nearby, and there were no orchids or sundew

 

[kentuckiense]

Great shots of the P. pallida. A friend invited me to come see them sometime and I need to take him up on it.

Have you been to the Hazleton xbicolor site this year? I was there two Saturdays ago (and also drove past Hazleton yesterday on the way home from a field site) but have yet to post the photos.

 

[cnycharles]

thanks. no, I didn't get there this year, but ken went down with some of his retired photography buddies and he said that there were even more plants/flowers this year than last. it's amazing the number of different shades of orange the hybrids can have. I think there are only a few real ciliaris species plants or at least last year there were less than a dozen. we may go down to a little south of hazelton in mid-september to check out some corallorhiza odontorhiza. we've never seen it up here, though it's supposed to be 'all over', just like c. maculata (only ever seen one plant in flower)

 

[kentuckiense]

thanks. no, I didn't get there this year, but ken went down with some of his retired photography buddies and he said that there were even more plants/flowers this year than last. it's amazing the number of different shades of orange the hybrids can have. I think there are only a few real ciliaris species plants or at least last year there were less than a dozen. we may go down to a little south of hazelton in mid-september to check out some corallorhiza odontorhiza. we've never seen it up here, though it's supposed to be 'all over', just like c. maculata (only ever seen one plant in flower)

Yeah, I only saw about 7-10 plants I would be comfortable calling straight ciliaris. My photographer pals claimed that the show, in terms of hybrid variability, was much better last year. No complaints from me, though.