Terrestrial Orchids

[McDonough]

I'm starting this thread for terrestrial orchids, such as Cypripedium.  I'll start out with a common "cyp" familiar to many of you, Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens.  I know I went overboard shooting photos, but I just had to show some images, the plants have outdone themselves this year.  Three unseasonably hot days pushed these along faster than I could have imagined, when they were just barely hinting as showing buds mere days ago.  The bigger of my two large clumps has 32 pips this year.

[RickR]

Sometimes each pic is so good, you just can't decide which ones you shouldn't keep...  Beautiful specimens, Mark.

Alas, I have no orchids in my home gardens here.  But there are many, many species in varied habitats near our cabin in northern Minnesota.

[McDonough]

Sometimes each pic is so good, you just can't decide which ones you shouldn't keep...  Beautiful specimens, Mark.

Alas, I have no orchids in my home gardens here.  But there are many, many species in varied habitats near our cabin in northern Minnesota.

If you make any field trip and find some of these goodies, please snap a few pics and share them with us

PS. When I think about photographing plants, and this spring I have taken thousands of pictures (couple hundred each day), some plants are infuriatingly difficult to photograph and capture a good likeness, others like this Cyp is so photogenic, that it is impossible NOT to take great pics, each and every one   Now, with C. reginae coming later, I get terrible pics of that one, it is the light white and pink flower that never shows correctly.... I'll work on that one in a month or so.

[Carlo A. Balistrieri]

Fabulous Mark...what an amazing clump! You see these often enough now, but rarely with such size and flower power.

[RickR]

Regarding pics of white flower, you can set your camera to a negative exposure setting, or in close photos, hold a white sheet of paper (even small tablet size) in the camera's view while the camera sets its exposure, and remove it when you actually snap the picture.

[Todd Boland]

The parviflorum in our BG are just breaking the surface, as are the C. acaule...it will be mid-June before they bloom here.  You certainly have some impressive clumps!

[McDonough]

The parviflorum in our BG are just breaking the surface, as are the C. acaule...it will be mid-June before they bloom here.  You certainly have some impressive clumps!

Todd, at the BG, how do they successfully cultivate C. acaule?  It is around in our woods, but I know that they don't usually move successfully.  I once did yard work for a wealthy woman, who had about 10 acres of land.  She wanted some of the "pink ladyslippers" moved from further in her property to someplace closer to her house and wooded garden.  Few ever made it in the long run.  Then for a huge apartment complex going in (the firm I worked for was the Architect for this project), I was allowed to salvage some plant materials before they fully bulldozed the site; there were magnificent stands of C. acaule; once again none of the salvaged plants made it in the long run.  Maybe I just don't understand what they need.  Any hints on cultivation?

[RickR]

I wonder if anyone has thought about the needs of the other partner in the symbiotic relationship. (I am just assuming there is one.) If the fungus (or whatever it might be) dies, can the plant live on?

[Todd Boland]

Mark, we have the C. acaule naturally in the 100 acres of forest surrounding the cultivated gardens...we have never cultivated it in captivity!  I expect our native population is probably around 500 plants.

[Hoy]

I am very impressed, Mark! I have never really tried to grow Cypripediums although I hope to do so one day.
Here in Norway they are very hard to find for sale and it is not allowed to remove the native C. regale (which I have seen twice in the wild) from the woods.

[Hoy]

This is a very common orchid in Norway, Orchis mascula. They are sought-after by animals! You can see the deer has taken a leafy tidbit. Before the neighbor started with sheep you could count thousends of the species in the wood here  in springtime.

[Lori S.]

Very beautiful, Trond!  (Too baaaa-d about the sheep though.    Ugh, sorry!   )

[Todd Boland]

I saw loads of this orchid in the Pyrenees when I viisted there 2 springs ago.

[Hatchett]

Here in Idaho some of the orchids are allready long out of bloom. some are just getting started. I went out today June 13 2010 and took these pictures:
C. regineae


B. striata

E. gigantea


Orchis unknown

[James R.]

The only thing that would be good about having colder weather than zone 8 (for me that is) is growing more Cypripedium. I have 6 Cypripedium macranthum from a very low elevation in China with warmer winters but they have yet to flower for me. I might have some flowers this coming Spring (I hope) they are about 6 yr from deflasked seed now. But I do grow Dactylorhiza and Bletilla ochracea and other Bletilla in the garden.