hooded ladies' tresses ~ 07/18/11 ~ Fort Ord

hooded ladies' tresses
Spiranthes romanzoffiana
Orchidaceae

It's that time of year again - orchids! Posting this reminds me we should go look for some other orchids around town. Piperia anyone?

Often when I repeat previous identifications, I do a cursory look to make sure I have past posts correct, in this case another hooded ladies' tresses at Fort Ord on August 4, 2010. The CNPS plant list for Fort Ord shows this species as "Spiranthes porrifolia/romanzoffiana – Western/Hooded ladies' tresses", which is unusual having a slashed ID on one of their lists. Maybe they weren't sure? I cheated last year by simply going with what Native Orchids on Flickr told me.

This time I looked at Jepson for both S. porrifolia and S. romanzoffiana, but relative proportions of fused upper sepal with lateral petals sounds variable and somewhat subjective. Besides, most flower descriptions don't make much sense to me unless I compare pictures. The two best CalPhotos' for comparison purposes are these close-ups of western and hooded. I've come up with my own non-scientific metaphor on how to tell these two ladies' tresses apart: western has a long straight tongue (lower petal/lip) sticking out over wide lower lips (sepals), whereas hooded has an arrow-shaped tongue sticking out over missing lower lips.

hooded ladies' tresses
Spiranthes romanzoffiana
Orchidaceae

Now that we've been orchid hunting for the endangered Yadon's piperia at several locations, we seem to be spotting different orchids left and right. Please note, I use the word 'hunting' to reference 'looking,' not 'killing.' In my estimation our local native orchids are not terribly showy and are fairly small, i.e. little single-stem shoots that rarely reach 18 inches tall with no apparent leaves. I'm guessing I've hiked past Spiranthes before at Fort Ord and never paid much attention to them before now. It's an odd phenomena of human attention; you're oblivious to the fact you're oblivious. I've hiked with people who simply don't see butterflies... at all, even after I point them out. There's a Hymenoptera in the second pic, but I'm feeling a little lazy to sort through a search of "all black bee" right now.

ps 08/22/10 - For other Spiranthes, check out these posts from Blue Jay Barrens in OH and Orchids, Nature and My Outdoor Life in the UK.