A Few Coral Roots

I had the chance to spend part of a day walking the woods with my sister. We adjusted some of the disturbed cages around the cedar seedlings. We did see evidence of some of the trees pulled out of the ground completely, with the roots exposed they would be dead and no point in replanting and while we were up in the woods and it was a beautiful day, we took a walk around to see the sparse Coral Roots.

With the drier than normal conditions, we were worried that we would not see any of the native Oregon Coral Root orchids. Yet a few have been popping up in the forest recently. See May 15 post from 2019 when I first found the chrallorhiza native and wondered what it was.

Corallorhiza is a genus of terrestrial orchids containing 11 species distributed across temperate regions of North and Central America and Eurasia. Corallorhiza orchids are all myco-heterotrophic: they produce little to no chlorophyll, generally do not photosynthesize, and rely on mycorrhizal fungi almost exclusively for nutrition (often from the Russulaceae family of ectomycorrhizal fungi).

Since the orchids live off the underground mycelium mat, they are found in areas where mushrooms grow in the fall so I will be monitoring these areas closely when the summer heat ends and the rainy season begins.

The specimens are not as grand as in the wetter springs, but these little beauties are a wonderful find.

A big thank you to my sister who was able to capture the petite flowers on the delicate stems.