Here is a bit of background -
Spiranthes cernua, commonly known as Ladies' tresses is a small terrestrial Orchid, native to New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, South Dakota to Nova Scotia, South to Texas and Florida. (Wild Orchids of of the Northeastern United States, A Field Guide by Paul Martin Brown) Flowering time starts at the end of August and lasts into October or very early November.
We discovered them more than 25 years ago at our place near Fleetville in NE Pennsylvania and we have been tracking them ever since, at our place, at nearby road sides where they come up in ditches and disturbed soil - AND - one year while driving North on rt 380 towards Scranton we discovered a large slope, surely at least 50 yards long, full of blooming plants right next to the highway. Now, we have never come across stands of thousands of blooming Orchids in our temperate zone, only in tropical places like Ecuador!
But this slope is too steep to be mowed and also the standing water/brook at the bottom of the slope protects that spot - so far!!
These Orchids love a lot of water, full sun and excellent drainage. In drier Summers they bloom nicely, but in wet Summers as we had this year, the amount of spikes are at their most numerous! We had a fairly wet Summer this year and when we stopped today at the rt 380 stand, we were not disappointed! There were surely a few thousand spikes in bloom and the lovely scent of anise was strongly in the air!
Please do open some of the thumbnails to get an idea of the density of the plants in blooms.
Arriving at our place we first checked on our stand next to the pond. "Ours" don't grow as dense, but this year we saw plants not just at the water's edge, but also higher up in bloom.
Some companion plants - the height of the Goldenrod is ridiculous this year
And I am showing one more location- the neighbor's slope. We found quite a few plants in bloom. This slope used to house lots of Cladonia Lichen, which have now disappeared since the soil got richer through the years. Except - I still find some patches of the Pink Earth Lichen or Dibaeis baeomyces amongst the somewhat stunted wildflowers there and the grasses
And here are some more plants in bloom
And to top it off some pretty mushrooms in the woods.
Normally we see additional Spiranthes cernua in the ditches of the dirt road leading to our place, unfortunately someone mowed the field a couple of weeks ago neatly right to the edges and took surely dozens of blooming spikes along with that. Too bad!
I hope it is ok, I copied the page out of the above mentioned field guide to give more details on this charming little Orchid.
Please enjoy!
