Platanthera psycodes

[tnyr5]

In situ. Not my sharpest pics, but in my defense, it was raining and I was taking pics while swatting at a cloud of biting flies. Flowers are about 1.5cm wide max.

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

Beautiful. North America has the most beautiful members of the genus IMO.

 

[Linus_Cello]

Cool. Where's you get from (which vendor)?

 

[cnycharles]

In situ. Not my sharpest pics, but in my defense, it was raining and I was taking pics while swatting at a cloud of biting flies.

Ah, the memories!
Evelyn Greene calls them ‘the defenders of the North’ (adirondacks)
Ty for sharing

 

[tnyr5]

Cool. Where's you get from (which vendor)?

These were photographed in the wild.
A friend recently asked me how to find them. I said: "You know when you're walking along a low mountain trail, and you see those wet swampy spots where the ferns are 5ft tall and the ground is black muck that swallows your feet up to your shins and you can see the clouds of bugs from 50 paces and you looked at it and said "NOPE!"? Walk into those until you lose a shoe and it looks like you're in South America, then look around for purple things."

 

[NYEric]

LOLZ! Dr. Livingston, I presume!

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

These were photographed in the wild.
A friend recently asked me how to find them. I said: "You know when you're walking along a low mountain trail, and you see those wet swampy spots where the ferns are 5ft tall and the ground is black muck that swallows your feet up to your shins and you can see the clouds of bugs from 50 paces and you looked at it and said "NOPE!"? Walk into those until you lose a shoe and it looks like you're in South America, then look around for purple things."

Sounds like where I found them in Maine decades ago! The only other place I saw them in abundance were on the ridge lines of the southern Appalachians growing on boggy, peaty scree in full sun in mats of ericaceous shrubs - blueberries, huckleberries, sheep laurel and the like.

Question: ever seen P. grandiflora in your travels?

 

[tnyr5]

Yep, plenty of times, just a touch early for them yet in the locations I know. They are much more impressive than psycodes, typically, although nothing compares to peramoena.

 

[abax]

Gorgeous plants that I have seen along mountain trails, but becoming rare here in KY.
I saw a few orange ones on the Appalachian Trail long ago.

 

[tnyr5]

Yeah, they really are. Sadly, couldn't get germination from seed last year. Now my flasker has retired due to a family tragedy, so I probably won't bother with them anymore, at least not until I can set up a flask lab of my own.

 

[tnyr5]

And here's a grandiflora blooming just late enough to not be pollinated by the psycodes without human intervention.