#coralroot

Coralroot seasonnnnnnn 😍

Cardamine bulbifera / Coralroot Bittercress at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University in Durham, NC

Hohoho what is this? You might wonder. A plant, but no leaves? Yes! This is a coralroot orchid that I discovered in The Woods. They are fascinating little guys. Instead of doing all the heavy lifting of photosynthesis like any self-respecting member of the Plantae Kingdom, these freeloaders plug into the local mycorrhizal network and leech off the hardworking fungi and their photosynthetic partners. By stealing its nutrientes from photosynthetic plants like trees that are also plugged into these networks, the coralroot is able to grow in shady forest floors where most other wildflowers can’t survive. What’s more, it doesn’t need to put all that energy into growing leaves to produce its own nutrients or structures to hold those leaves up, so it only emerges from the ground briefly to flower and spread it seeds, spending the vast majority of the year chilling beneath the soil in rhizome form. In this way, it’s behavior is more like a fungus than a plant! This one is likely Corallorhiza maculata or Corallorhiza mertensiana. Definitely a Very Good plant.

Check this out! It’s a parasitic orchid, they parasitize mushroom mycelium because they dont produce chlorophyll

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Before I get to the fungus (and I will!), here’s my most exciting find of the day, although not the most beautiful picture. I had been told years ago that there were at least 6 orchids in the area I go to for photos, but over the years since then I’ve only found 4. But today I saw this nondescript stem standing lit up among the shadows of the woods. I thought it might be beechdrops but it wasn’t. The only other possibility was some species of coralroot, which is an orchid, and upon doing some searches I find that’s what it is! Autumn coralroot. I thought it was finished blooming but it turns out sometimes this is all it does because it’s (nsfw!) self-pollinating. I wish I had taken more pictures but I was sort of in a mushroom trance (not the kind where you eat them, but just from seeing so many) at the time.  I’m not sure I could find it again. I had wandered off the trail and only noticed it because the sun was hitting it right then. So this may not look like much but I haven’t been this jazzed about something for a while. New orchid. Yay!

From the archives Via Flickr: Striped Coralroot (Corallorhiza striata) by the Herman Creek Trail