Category Archives: Michigan Orchids

Broad-leaved Helleborine’s Look-a-likes

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Coeloglossum viride

Long-bracted Orchid L & C                                                       Yellow Lady-slipper R (Note hairs)

Many people have posted comments on an earlier blog post about Broad-leaved Helleborine (Epipactis helleborine). There is a lot of confusion regarding the identification of this species. I recently saw a photograph of this orchid identified as Spotted Coral-root  (Corallorhiza maculata). Broad-leaved Helleborine has several color forms and some of the field guides do not account for the variations.

Epipactis helleborine

Close-up of Epipactis flower showing distinctive orchid flower structures

If you have a plant in flower you can recognize it as an orchid because it has three sepals and three petals with one of the petals modified into a lip. The reproductive  organs are fused into a column. The leaves are parallel veined. (Note: Sepals are the outer covering of a flower bud. Petals are inside of the bud.)

Broad-leaved Helleborine’s flowers are about 15mm (5/8 inches) across and the lip is turned in at the tip.

Epipactis helleborine

Smooth leaves and stems of Broad-leaved Helleborine

When not flowering Broad-leaved Helleborine is commonly mistaken for one of the lady-slippers but its leaves and stem are smooth. Lady-slippers (Cypripedium spp.) have hairy leaves and stems. Helleborine normally has more leaves than a lady-slipper.

Long-bracted Orchid (Coeloglossum viride) has smaller flowers with notched lips and is not as coarse a plant as hellebore. It grows in natural areas and I have never seen it invading a garden.

Epipactis helleborine

Root of Broad-leaved Helleborine showing growth bud and side view of flower

While this is not a gardening blog many people ask about controlling this species. The only way I know is to try to dig out the plant. If you leave any of the fleshy root behind it will come back.  Note the growth bud for next year’s plant in the photo. Most orchid species have fleshy roots so please make sure you have the plant correctly identified before you dig. My earlier blog post showed this species growing with domestic Viburnum and, in spite of repeated digging, that colony is still growing. Plants appeared in my wildflower garden, but died out without any interference from me.

Broad-leaved Helleborine is probably growing in every county in the state. Learn the plant when it is flowering so you can identify it later in the year.
Copyright 2016 by Donald Drife

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The Bog Big Three

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In the Great Lakes Region the bog big three are Swamp Dragon (Arethusa bulbosa), Rose Pogonia (Pogonia ophioglossoides), and Grass-pink (Calopogon tuberosus). You can sometimes find all three in an undisturbed bog or fen. They are all sun-lovers and their colonies disappear if they become shaded. Swamp Dragon flowers first and Rose Pogonia is the last to flower but their blooming times overlap. I have seen Swamp Dragon and Grass-pink in flower on Memorial Day. Grass-pink and Rose Pogonia flower during July in the Upper Peninsula. Flowering time varies with the season, location, and genetics of the population.

Arethusa bulbosa-Flowers-Leaves

Arethusa Flowers & Leaves

I learned about Swamp Dragon as a boy from a Kodachrome slide my dad had taken. I saw my first one in 1974 during a family vacation to Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. I jumped across a roadside ditch and over a dozen blooming plants.

I have found plants almost every year since then. They send up a single flower in late spring or early summer and the leaves develop just after the flower fades. A given population varies in size from year to year. One that I know in the eastern Upper Peninsula has fluctuated between 5 plants and 10,000 plants. Fred Case observed that individual plants are short lived, usually less than 5 years. If an early frost occurs, and plants fail to set seed for a couple of years in a row then the population drops.

Arethusa bulbosa

Arethusa Flowers

Morris and Eames in their classic Our Wild Orchids write, “To us it has always been, quite startling, a face watching and aware. We shall never forget the moment when our eyes first fell on its blossom in the lonely depths of a sphagnum bog.” I will always remember the first time I found this plant.I love this plant and currently have three colonies under annual observation. However, it is becoming rarer, because of habitat loss from invasive species such as Glossy Buckthorn (Frangula alnus)and wetland development.

Calopogon tuberosus

Grass -pink

Grass-pink is the largest of the bog big three. Under good conditions it can reach 60cm (2-feet) in height. It is normally easy to spot this plant. It is Michigan’s only non-respuinated orchid, meaning that the lip of the flower is uppermost. Other Michigan orchids have a 180-degree twist to the ovary. I find more Grass-pinks than Swamp Dragons. The Grass-pink populations fluctuate less than Swamp Dragons and are normally longer lived. I know of one station that my father photographed in the 1940s that still exists.

Pogonia ophioglossoides

Rose Pogonia

Rose Pogonia is the easiest member of the big three to find but it is not common. I don’t remember my first colony but it was probably the old station at Hart Lake in Bald Mountain Recreation Area that has since been overgrown. A tall plant of this species is 15cm (6-inches). It spreads by rootlets so when you find this plant there often are several hundred plants. It has a single leaf on the stem.

The big three are flowering now. Get out, get your feet wet, and have a look.
Copyright 2014 by Donald Drife

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A Weedy Orchid (Epipactis helleborine)

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Broad-leaved Helleborine (Epipactis helleborine) is a European Orchid that is invading many woodlots and gardens in Michigan. In 1968, Ed Voss wrote an article for the Michigan Audubon Newsletter titled “A Weedy Orchid?” Ed’s prediction proved to be correct so I removed the question mark from my title.

Epipactis helleborine

Profile of flower, an opening flower showing the green sepals which form the outer bud covering, close-up showing droplets of nectar

Imported for its supposed medicinal values, it has colonized much of the state. The oldest specimen for the state was collected in 1919, in Berrien Co., in the southwest corner of the state. In the 1930s it was found on the campus of Michigan State. When Fred Case wrote the first edition of his Orchids of the Western Great Lakes Region this was one of the few orchids growing wild in the state that he had not found. I first found it in 1973 in the lawn of the main branch of the Detroit Public Library. A few weeks later I saw it in the Porcupine Mountains in the Upper Peninsula. It is now recorded from 40 counties in Michigan and doubtlessly occurs in many more.

It is now common in the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula. Large groups can be found in Hartwick Pines State Park especially among the old growth pines. It occurs in Royal Oak’s two Nature Parks. I am starting to see it as a garden weed. My church in Huntington Woods has several hundred plants in one flower bed. Lewiston Lodge in Montmorency Co. has this plant throughout its landscaping. It is a weed that has invaded my garden in Troy. The Michigan State Extension even has a post on controlling this species.

Epipactis helleborine

Plant in natural cedar woods, group of plants in landscape (note domestic viburnums), close-up of spike

The plants look more or less like non-hairy lady’s-slippers. Helleborine is taller and the leaves are only twice as long as they are wide.  In the wild it can be mistaken for Long-bracted Orchid which blooms earlier, has smaller flowers, much longer bracts, and a notched lip.    At least two named flower color forms occur in Michigan. In the common form the flowers are reddish but a green flowered form (f. viridens) often occurs. Sometimes plants with flowers reddish-purple can be seem. Populations can have all color forms.

Epipactis helleborine

Three color forms of Helleborine

This orchid is expanding its range in Michigan and should be an early find for a beginning plant hunter. In time, we will tell whether it proves to be a pest.

Copyright 2013 by Donald Drife

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Michigan Lady-slippers

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Stemless Lady-slipper

Stemless Lady-slipper
Cypripedium acaule

The five species of Lady-slippers that grow in Michigan are some of our showiest wildflowers. They belong to the Orchid Family (Orchidaceae) and are in the genus Cypripedium. Cypripedium comes from Cypris meaning Venus and pedilon meaning shoe. Scientific names consist of two words. The first is the genus and the second is the specific name. Related plants are grouped in the same genus but have distinct specific names. Species are sometimes further broken down into subspecies, varieties, and forms. Our Yellow Lady-slipper has two varieties in the state, but it is difficult at times to distinguish them.

Stemless Lady-slipper

Stemless Lady-slipper
Cypripedium acaule

Stemless Lady-slipper (Cypripedium acaule), also called Moccasin Flower or Pink Lady-slipper, is a widespread acid loving plant. Acaule means stemless and refers to the leaves at the base of the plant. It flowers from late May and to the end of June. Normally the flowers are pink but white flowered plants and darker flowered plants occur. The flowers are cream-colored when they are developing and can be mistaken for albinos. It grows in the pine-needle duff around Grayling. Once we were looking for Moonworts (Botrychium spp) and stumbled onto several thousand lady-slipper plants blooming in a borrow pit. A borrow pit is a location were sand has been dug out for road construction. The area was less than an acre and the leaves of the plants touched each other.

Ram's Head

Ram’s Head
Cypripedium arietinum

Ram’s Head Lady-slipper (Cypripedium arietinum) grows in the Great Lake’s dunes or among the conifers at the edges of the dunes. Arietinum means like a ram’s head and the flower when looked at head on does resemble a head. The plant has a wiry stem that always seems to be moving in the breeze. It is a challenge to photograph this plant. Most recent records come from the Upper Peninsula and the Lower Peninsula north of Grayling.

White Lady-slipper Cypripedium candidum

White Lady-slipper Cypripedium candidum

White Lady-slipper (Cypripedium candidum) is found in fens or bogs in southern Michigan. Candidum means white. When I first saw this plant, I was surprised at its small size. The plant’s white lip has purple veins. This orchid loves sun and disappears where it is shaded. Several of the colonies I have observed for many years grow near railroad tracks and the fens burn periodically from fires caused by sparks from the railroad. Several colonies I know have been overgrown by Glossy Buckthorn (Frangula alnus [Rhamnus frangula]). One in Livingston County disappeared in five years. The first year several buckthorn seedlings grew among the flowering lady-slippers, by the third year the plants no longer flowered and were reduced to seedling like plants consisting of a single leaf. By the fifth year no plants could be located.

Yellow Lady-slipper

Yellow Lady-slipper
Cypripedium parviflorum var.pubescens

Yellow Lady-slipper (Cypripedium parviflorum) is found throughout Michigan and is highly variable. Parviflorum means small flowered. The species as now classified separates our plants from the European (C. calceolus) plants. The typical variety (var. parviflorum) occurs in the southeastern United States.

As a side note: when botanists name a new species of plant, they designate a “type specimen.” This is a single pressed plant that other botanists can study to determine exactly what the species is. The type specimen of a given species also establishes the typical variety that might not be the commonest variety. Therefore, the typical variety of the Yellow Lady-slipper is Cypripedium parviflorum var. parviflorum even though there are many more plants of the variety pubescens in the world. The variety pubescens (meaning pubescent) and variety makasin (from the Algonquin Indian name of this flower) both grow in Michigan.

Variety makasin has the common name Smaller Yellow Lady-slipper. In this variety the lip is small (the size of my little fingernail), the sepals and lateral petals are dark, it grows in bogs or fens in southern Michigan. This orchid is one of the sweetest smelling native plants with a strong scent similar to vanilla, another orchid.

Yellow Lady-slipper

Yellow Lady-slipper
(L) Cypripedium parviflorum var.pubescens
(R) Cypripedium parviflorum var. makasin

The variety pubescens is normally large, its lip shape, twisting and color of the lateral petals, and habitat are extremely variable. The Yellow Lady-slippers growing farther north than Saginaw are this variety but it also grows in the southern part of the state. Small plants of this variety can be difficult to distinguish from var. makasin. In some plants, the lips are cream colored. These plants are found well north of the White Lady-slipper so they are not hybrids. They are just color forms. Plants can be as tall as two feet (.6 m).

Showy Lady-slipper (Cypripedium reginae) grows in wet areas throughout the state. Reginae means “of the queen.” The plants are two to three feet tall, with one to three, two-inch wide flowers. They are regal plants. Botanists possess large vocabularies of technical descriptive words, however; Merritt Fernald in the eighth edition of Gray’s Manual calls this plant “handsome,” and in the first edition, Asa Gray himself calls it “beautiful.”

Showy Lady-slipper

Showy Lady-slipper Cypripedium reginae

The group of plants shown in the photograph grows in a ditch along U.S.2 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I first observed the colony in 1973. I have never failed to find plants there but some years they are single leaves only a few inches long. When the trees grow up and shade the plants they stop flowering and gradually reduce in size. The power company clears the trees out of the ditch and within a year or two the plant bloom again. After five to ten years hundreds of plants flower in the ditch. As the trees grow up the number of flowering plants is reduced. Last year about a
dozen plants flowered. The trees were touching the power line so hopefully they will be cut soon.

I have watched another station for this plant almost as long. It grows in the Bald Mountain State Recreation Area in Oakland Co. When I first saw the colony in 1974, over six-thousand plants were flowering. It is in a large, cedar swamp. White-tailed Deer bedded down on grassy hummocks. When the deer population was high, they kept the White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis) browsed. When the deer population went down, the cedars grew up, shaded the plants, and they ceased flowering. The deer provide another service for the plant by stepping on their seedpods and planting the seeds. I revisited the colony a few years ago knowing that the deer population was high and expecting to see a lady-slipper show. I could only find a few single leaf plants. The cedar swamp was over-grown by Glossy Buckthorn (Frangula alnus). The colony is now gone.

An additional species, Franklin’s Lady-slipper (Cypripedium passerinum), occurs on the north shore of Lake Superior. It might one day be discovered in Michigan. I have often wondered if Oliver Farwell’s White Lady-slipper record in the 1880s from the Keweenaw was this species. His existing specimen is clearly White Lady-slipper but we know he replaced a few of his older specimens. I think he originally found Franklin’s Lady-slipper, identified it as White Lady-slipper because it was the only white-flowered lady-slipper in his botanical manual. Later he replaced the Franklin’s Lady-slipper specimen with the White Lady-slipper specimen that is the pressed plant we have today. Franklin’s Lady-slipper should be looked for in the Upper Peninsula. Who knows, one day, one of us may be walking alongside a cold northern Michigan stream…

Copyright 2013 by Donald Drife

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Michigan Orchids

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Orchids have intrigued people’s imagination for centuries. The plants use different methods to trick pollinators. They have complex flower designs that ensure they release and receive pollen. Some plants mimic insect’s forms and smells. Orchids occur everywhere except Antarctica. Many people are surprised to learn the Michigan has 56 native orchid species. Most of our natives are obscure. Upon showing people a native orchid, their first response is often something such as “that’s an orchid?”

L-R Pink Lady-slipper,Yellow Lady-slipper, Showy Lady-slipper

L-R Pink Lady-slipper,Yellow Lady-slipper, Showy Lady-slipper

Our five species of Lady-slippers are the orchids that most people see. The first orchid I remember seeing was a Pink Lady-slipper (Cypripedium acaule) at Proud Lake Recreation Area. I think this was before I started elementary school. Those plants grew in a quaking bog and a few years later I saw plants growing in dry soil behind a sand dune. It was the acid soil they required not the moisture.

Arethusa bulbosa

Swamp Dragon

The Swamp Dragon (Arethusa bulbosa) was another plant that I learned about from one of my father’s Kodachrome slides. The first colony I ever found was back in 1974 in the Keweenaw Peninsula. I leapt across a roadside ditch to explore a rock outcropping and jumped over a few hundred plants. They were growing out of sphagnum moss. I have seen thousands of plants since then.

 

 

 

Alaska Orchid (Platanthera unalascensis) is a disjunct from the west. It grows in the Rocky Mountains, the Black Hills, the eastern end of the Upper Peninsula, the Bruce Peninsula, and the Gaspe Bay area. It has been placed in the genus Habenaria, and also Piperia. Currently, it is grouped with the Rein Orchids in the genus Platanthera. It has been called the “tall, thin, green, nothing.”

Platanthera unalascensis

Alaska Orchid

I found the plants in the spring of 1979, near Cedarville, Michigan while looking for Calypso. I returned a month later and discovered that the plants were in bud. Ten days later, I drove the 300 miles from my house to the colony (this was before I had heard the term “carbon footprint.”)  None of the plants had opened their blossoms. I returned a week later and the deer had browsed off every flower spike. I found plants, sometimes in bud and sometimes in seed. It was over 30 years before I finally saw the plant in flower.

Hunting orchids is a great reason to get out into nature. You never know what you will find when you jump over a ditch or wander onto a limestone outcropping. Just get out and explore.