Coral Root

The first shoot of the native orchid, Coral Root, was spotted as I was out in the woods re-caging the tender cedar seedlings.

I first noticed that we had the rather shy orchid in our forest last year when I commented that it looked like red asparagus and wondered what it was.

At this stage, the stalk is only about 2 inches tall and I found it growing in the same area where I first noticed them growing last year (you could say I have been on stalk watch for the last month). I’ll be on the lookout for the pretty, little orchid flowers to begin showing in the next weeks. Since they are very sparse, I will not harvest any of them for the house although they do have natural healing properties that the Native American People used for colds, pneumonia, and skin irritations.

According to North American Orchid Conservation Center;

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). They lack leaves and their stems are generally yellowish, brown or reddish purple instead of green; some species, however, are known to photosynthesize to a limited extent. They produce up to 40 small flowers, which are generally inconspicuous but can be showy, and vary in color from white to yellow to reddish brown. Corallorhiza are found in forests, with some species preferring drier forests and others growing in moister forests and bogs.

Seeing this single shoot pop up after the very dry winter and spring we are having is giving me hope that there enough water stored in the ground for the trees and other vegetation growing in the forest. Coral Root depends moisture and an intricate, under-ground system of the mycorrhizal (fungal) network. Without the network the Coral Root would not be able to exist. It is this same network that allows mushrooms to grow and trees to thrive. There is also evidence to say this network is how the plants of the forest communicate with each other when drought, pests or other dangers linger about.