June 2015

The State of Washington has more native orchids than Hawaii. Hawaii has only 3 genera, while Washington boasts 13. As Michael and I hikes the grueling and rewarding Eagle Crest Trail above Longmire, in Mt. Rainier National Park we saw 4 of our native orchids in bloom, 3 of which I had never seen before: Northwestern Twayblade ( Listera caurina), Heart-leaved Twayblade ( L. cordata), and the saprophytic Western Coral Root (Corallorhiza mertensiana) pictured above.

[In an effort to expedite posting over the next few months (I have articles to write, classes to teach, peas to pick and guest to entertain), I will be keeping it to one image and a paragraph. Each will be a portrait of a plant I have encountered for the first time this year, whether in the wild , a garden or a nursery. Here is number one…]

Spring flowers of the Great Lakes region are so ephemeral you can easily miss them. During a recent visit to my mother’s farm in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Michael and I went fishing at Lake Ottawa in Ottawa National Forest. The winds were high and the fishing miserable. Photography wasn’t so easy either but I got out the phone and took a shot of this Blue-bead Lily(Clintonia borealis) anyway. It is a spring ephemeral I seemed to have missed in my 40-plus years of visiting this lake.