Hello all,
I went up North near Speculator, NY to check on an area that often has spiranthes casei, or Case's Ladies Tresses. They grow in thin soils or sandy/shaley scraped areas, often disturbed poor soils. They come up well after spiranthes romanzoffiana (late July) and are usually in full or near-full flower by the time most types of spir. cernua in the area are coming up. There is one form of cernua coming up right now, but another hasn't started to emerge yet, and even another form won't be in full flower (very fragrant) until October.
Spiranthes casei has identifying keys being the front of the flower often looks closed rather than a flaring opening like others; a butter-yellow section on the bottom, underside of the lip and usually a single, very regular spiral of the flowers up the stem. If crushed, the flowers usually have a very pungent odor. If you look closely at the plant stem and closeup pictures, you will see that the plant has very shiny short hairs that look like bristles.
single plant high on a bank very close to the edge of the forest. plants can take slight shade, and often are quite a bit taller with more flowers than ones growing in full sun
can see the very regular, single spiral of flowers up the stem
the flowers really do have a slight greenish tint to them, which is also a good indicator of species type. you can see that the top sepal really hangs over the opening of the flower instead of flaring up like many other spiranthes in this area and season
a decent population of eight plants growing together in a circle (look closely!)
two images of wildflowers growing around casei (direct center of the images) in the open field
I went up North near Speculator, NY to check on an area that often has spiranthes casei, or Case's Ladies Tresses. They grow in thin soils or sandy/shaley scraped areas, often disturbed poor soils. They come up well after spiranthes romanzoffiana (late July) and are usually in full or near-full flower by the time most types of spir. cernua in the area are coming up. There is one form of cernua coming up right now, but another hasn't started to emerge yet, and even another form won't be in full flower (very fragrant) until October.
Spiranthes casei has identifying keys being the front of the flower often looks closed rather than a flaring opening like others; a butter-yellow section on the bottom, underside of the lip and usually a single, very regular spiral of the flowers up the stem. If crushed, the flowers usually have a very pungent odor. If you look closely at the plant stem and closeup pictures, you will see that the plant has very shiny short hairs that look like bristles.
single plant high on a bank very close to the edge of the forest. plants can take slight shade, and often are quite a bit taller with more flowers than ones growing in full sun
can see the very regular, single spiral of flowers up the stem
the flowers really do have a slight greenish tint to them, which is also a good indicator of species type. you can see that the top sepal really hangs over the opening of the flower instead of flaring up like many other spiranthes in this area and season
a decent population of eight plants growing together in a circle (look closely!)
two images of wildflowers growing around casei (direct center of the images) in the open field
