New Orchid! Yea!

 

Thanks to our hawk-eyed intern, Nora, we now have a new species of orchid to add to Wahkeena's list! Whorled Pogonia, Isotria verticillata is a native orchid that, when not in bloom looks a whole lot like Indian Cucumber Root. We've known that we should have this species here, but just hadn't seen it before now. The population we found is off-trail, up on the ridge. Ironically, it is in an area that for an off-trail spot, we are in on a fairly regular basis. Admittedly, it is mostly in the fall and winter that we are there. Anyway, here a few pictures of what they look like right now. We will be keeping a close eye on them next spring, and hopefully we'll have some pictures of the flowers to show you! In the meantime if you would like to see what they look like in bloom, check out the images at wildflower.org.