Prairie White-fringed Orchid

A Prairie White-fringed Orchid (Platanthera leucophaea) shines like a beacon in a large prairie. At one time this site hosted nearly 6,000 of the orchids. Now, their numbers are just a pittance, victims of invasive plants such as Reed Canary Grass (Phalaris arundinacea) and others. Habitat destruction and degradation have caused this orchid to nosedive, and it is listed as federally threatened - among the rarest of the rare.

Last Saturday, July 8, I was fortunate enough to be included on an epic botanical excursion with Tomas Curtis, Chelsea Gottfried, and Shaun Pogacnik. We visited several sites in northwest Ohio and sedges in the genus Carex were our major targets. Shaun and Tomas are two of the finest botanists working in Ohio (and beyond) and have many major finds to their collective credit. Tomas had found a site for the state-endangered Handsome Sedge (Carex formosa), and Shaun had found a new station for Northern Fox Sedge (Carex alopecoidea), also endangered. We saw both, along with plenty of other sedges. I made lots of sedge images, and really need to make a post about those here. I'll try.

The inflorescence of Prairie White-fringed Orchid in all its glory. Well, maybe just a hair past prime but still looking magnificent. Big plants can be a few feet in height. It is pollinated by large sphinx moths, and I tell that story, with photographic proof, RIGHT HERE.

As our sedge sites were quite close to this orchid prairie, we could not resist a visit to see the flashy plants. We also found many other interesting plants there, such as Sullivant's Milkweed (Asclepias sullivantii), which was originally discovered in Ohio. And one of our party had never seen the orchid, which meant that a stop here was absolutely mandatory.

Hopefully the powers-that-be that own and manage this site can determine a strategy to increase orchid numbers. I imagine the plants come up in greater abundance after controlled burns, but I do not know the frequency of fire at this site. But fire probably won't do much to stymie the canary grass, and that pernicious nonnative seems to be a major culprit in reducing the orchids.