Great Plains Ladies'-tresses

Not much time to post of late, nor run afield to produce new imagery. I am in the final stages of a book project - more on that in a later post - and deadline-driven tasks have taken much time of late.

So, here are two photos from an excursion to western Lake Erie back on September 29 (2022). I stopped by the Lakeside Daisy State Nature Preserve to visit with a rare (for Ohio) orchid.

Two flowering stems of Great Plains Ladies'-tresses (Spiranthes magnicamporum) rise from a rocky lunar landscape. The artificial alvars of formerly quarried sites on Ohio's Marblehead Peninsula are renowned for hosting the federally threatened Lakeside Daisy (Tetraneuris herbacea). In spite of the barren landscape features, this habitat hosts many other interesting plants, including a number of other rarities.

By late September, the flowers are waning but those in the upper reaches of the spike still looked good. There are nine Spiranthes species in Ohio - some say more, based on recent splits - and all are relatively elfin in dimensions. The little flowers look like botanical confectionaries, as if they were crafted with sugar granules. By now, the wee orchids have senesced into brownness as has most of our other flora, and the upper Midwest prepares for winter and botanical dormancy.

NOTE: The black background on the second image was obtained by slipping a piece of black velvet, mounted on cardboard, behind the subject. This is an easy noninvasive way of isolating plants from a cluttered background.