Late Orchids and other rare to endangered species

 As promised in my previous post, this one will focus primarily on orchids, some of them quite rare, that occur in the August/September time frame.

As is featured in the current header, Nodding Pogonia (Triphora trianthophoros) is one of the rarest in Canada. While I have seen it in flower in very late July and as late as mid-September, typically about the third week in August is when it is at its peak.The following photos of this orchid were taken on August 25. It is legally Endangered, as the only known location for it in Canada is at Rondeau Provincial Park.

 It is very small, as you can probably tell from the first photo. They rarely exceed 12 cm in total height.

The flowers, all of which are developed to a certain point, will open simultaneously for a single day, can be slightly more than 1 cm in height. Singles are the norm, and it is always nice to see them with lots of magenta.

Doubles on the same flower seem to be plentiful at times.....

....while three flowers on the same plant, open all at the same time, is more unusual. In checking on this rare orchid annually since the early 1970s, I don't see a triple flowered one every year.

As tiny as Nodding Pogonia is, here is one that is even less conspicuous. It is Autumn Coralroot (Corallorhiza odontorhiza) and is also quite rare, although not as rare as the first one. It is a bit taller on average, but the flowers are much less showy. There are two varieties of this orchid. The one shown here is var. pringlei, and this is the 'open-flowered' variety. Even though the drooping flowers are open, the seed capsules are already well-developed. The form with flowers that never really open is even less obvious. In both cases, self-pollination occurs. To give you an idea of how small this is, it was taken with a 100mm macro lens plus 68mm of extension tubes, and then cropped some more.

Sticking with orchids a bit longer, there is an interesting group of them in the Ladies'-tresses genus, and some can be challenging to tell apart. A previous post featured the most common one at this time of year, the Sphinx Ladies'-tresses (Spiranthes incurva). I photographed it at Rondeau a few weeks ago. While looking for an endangered gentian in eastern Chatham-Kent, I photographed this same species.

Its flowers are almost entirely white, with little or no fragrance. The brownish spots appearing are an indication that it is past its best. It was photographed on Sept 1, and normally would have been in its peak condition around the third week of August

It has small leaves at the base.

A similar looking one is this next one: Southern Slender Ladies'-tresses (Spiranthes lacera var. gracilis). It is quite dainty, and not easily seen amongst the fairly dense prairie vegetation.

A closer look reveals one of the key characteristics of its spiral flowers: the distinctly green centres of each flower.

Sometimes the spiraling of the flowers takes on a slightly different look with a more drawn out spiral.

It is an extremely rare species, with only this one population showing up in the iNaturalist database. There are older records that I am aware of, but they have not been seen for several decades, primarily due to a change in the overall vegetation.

I have been out to check on another extremely rare orchid of this group: Yellow Ladies'-tresses (Spiranthes ochroleuca), but it was not visible on this date. It occurs on a normally fairly dry sandy site, and it is possible that the extremely dry late June through early August period may be the reason it hasn't appeared. Or maybe I was a few days too early, so I will be out checking for it again soon.

Another one in that genus, while considered rare in Ontario but is relatively common at Rondeau, is Great Plain's Ladies'-tresses (Spiranthes magnicamporum). It is a bit early for it at the moment, but should be showing up in the next week. It is a more robust looking species, with a slightly creamy centre as well as a spicy vanilla scent, and no basal leaves. It grows in grassy areas.

Not an orchid, but an Endangered gentian, is the White Prairie Gentian (Gentiana alba). It grows in the same vicinity as the Southern Slender Ladies'-tresses, and so I combined the time out to photograph them both. There are three sub-populations of this gentian, and at the moment, are the only ones known for Canada. Key characteristics are the creamy white flowers, most of which are fairly closed but not always tightly closed. The flowers also have slight ridges, typically with greenish lines. The plant grows best in high quality tallgrass prairie/savanna vegetation communities.

They can sometimes be confused with another gentian, commonly known as Bottle Gentian (Gentiana andrewsii), which is fairly widespread in a broader vegetation community. Normally they are quite a deep blue, but on occasion they can be white. Such was the case where I was investigating a reported occurrence of the White Prairie Gentian (WPG) in eastern Chatham-Kent. We didn't find any WPG, but did see this white colour form of the Bottle Gentian. The flowers are more tightly closed, and doesn't have the more obvious ridges with greenish edges.

Just to add a little non-botanical information to this post, while I was in eastern Chatham-Kent on the hunt for some of the species above, I stopped by a couple of spots along the Thames River to look for some rare, and very rare, damselflies. The first one is much more common than the second species: American Rubyspot. It has a partially reddish area near the base of the wings, and their abdomen shows definitive brighter rings. They don't always sit in an ideal place to photograph them, but when they do, the patience required is worth it. In Ontario, it is found in many scattered locations west of the Toronto to Barrie area.

Much rarer is the Smoky Rubyspot, next, which shows a bit of red near the base of the wings, and a smoky tip of the wings. Also the abdomen is only faintly ringed, if at all. In Ontario and Canada, it is found primarily along the Sydenham River, the lower reaches of the Thames River and in a couple of places along the Ausable River.

I also managed to check on a couple of rare plants I knew about in the area, both of which are ranked as Endangered. The first one is Eastern Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida), and while it is not in flower now, it is still quite distinctive. It has a small cluster of red berries.....

...and the large buds of next year's flowers are quite prominent.

In the same general area is a remnant of a population of Eastern Prickly Pear Cactus (Opuntia cespitosa), also Endangered. It was once part of a large population that was widespread across a sandy hillside back in the 1940s, according to a former co-worker of mine who lived across from the site. But eventually the hillside was converted to agriculture, and only a small remnant persists along the roadside.

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