Platanthera grandiflora and Platanthera orbiculata (and their guardian)

[kentuckiense]

On Sunday I headed into the mountains to do a bit of orchid hunting and hiking. My friends went ahead down the trail while I captured the following two species.

Platanthera grandiflora:

Platanthera orbiculata

Since I was a good half hour behind my friends on the hike, I briskly walked in order to catch up. During a rather narrow stretch of trail, I stepped over a fallen log, strode a couple paces, and startled a four-foot long timber rattlesnake six inches from my feet. It writhed and rattled as I jumped out of my skin. Upon regaining my composure, I grabbed my camera and got a couple poorly-lit (it was cloudy and about to rain) shots. I'd never seen the beautiful black morph before, not even in photographs.

This is actually my second timber rattlesnake close-call in less than two weeks. About a week and a half ago I nearly stepped on a two-foot long tan morph timber rattler. I have since been presented with a pair of snake gaiters.

 

[JeanLux]

Excellent portraits of those lovely blooms!!!! And the snake must have been an 'interesting' experience :drool: !! Jean

 

[musiclovertony]

Oh those are lovely!!! :-D Platanthera grandiflora looks a lot like the Platanthera psycodes we have native in Minnesota. The P. orbiculata flower looks almost angelic in the head-on shot

 

[SlipperFan]

I love the Plantanthera -- what a beautiful thing!

You know, the black snake is beautiful, also. But not one for me

 

[s1214215]

Wow, stunning.

If there is any chance to get seed of the first species, please PM me. We never see them in the Southern Hemisphere, even though in Australia we have some areas they can grow

Brett

 

[NYEric]

Great fotos! BTW how did you cook the snakes? :evil:

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

No petting or eating the snakes please!

 

[cnycharles]

I have since been presented with a pair of snake gaiters.

yikes! good idea. thanks for the pics! we're still looking to find platanthera orbiculata in ny; can find lots of macrophylla but the other has eluded us so far

adding this note: I looked more closely at the nectaries; how long are they? those flowers look like macrophylla

 

[cnycharles]

I thought last year that the nectaries might be long and your plant a macrophylla, but as I was posting pictures of orbiculata we found this year, I did a search. your plant definitely is orbiculata

 

[W. Beetus]

Great orchids! I like the color of the second one.

 

[biothanasis]

Great pictures!!!!!!! WOW

 

[kentuckiense]

I thought last year that the nectaries might be long and your plant a macrophylla, but as I was posting pictures of orbiculata we found this year, I did a search. your plant definitely is orbiculata

Yeah, I thought about that last year (never saw your post about nectary length, I suppose). Most macrophylla photos I've seen show the nectary arching down he stem. Furthermore, the southernmost station for macrophylla is a good bit north (~75 miles?) from the plants I photographed, and even that station looks to be about ~100 miles south of any other station. Of course, funny things happen in the southern Appalachians, so I wouldn't put TOO much weight on that.

EDIT: Here's a "macrophylla" south of where I photographed orbiculata, so who knows: http://www.flickr.com/photos/frogdr/3736869059/

EDIT 2: Here's a shot of the nectaries of that one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/frogdr/3737658214/sizes/o/in/photostream/ I can't really tell.

 

[Erythrone]

Impressive flowers!

Impressive snake! Is it a very dangerous species?

 

[kentuckiense]

Impressive flowers!

Impressive snake! Is it a very dangerous species?

It isn't often fatal, but it has a very nasty bite. Some genotypes have hemolytic and/or neurotoxic compounds in their venom.

 

[cnycharles]

Yeah, I thought about that last year (never saw your post about nectary length, I suppose). Most macrophylla photos I've seen show the nectary arching down he stem.

that's interesting. all the macrophyllas i've seen up here have nectaries mostly going straight out behind the flower. a few are somewhat downwards.... the one things I noticed as a big difference between macrophylla and orbiculata is that orbiculata flowers are much smaller than macrophylla. also in the same space on a flower spike there are usually more flowers for orbiculata than macrophylla. the leaves and the spikes are usually the same size though I saw a few orbiculata spikes that were quite tall but had nearly 40 flowers on it. on the same length spike for macrophyllas even extremely healthy plants had max 16 flowers on them (same spike length but just much larger flowers). there were color differences between the two also but the size and number of flowers was the main difference (besides the nectary length)