Ragged fringed orchids are botanical works of art

 

An orchid in a deep forest sends out its fragrance even if no one is around to appreciate it.— Confucius

The Chinese sage and philosopher perhaps waxed egocentric in that quote. Orchids couldn't care less if people are around to appreciate their aroma, beauty or charisma. They’ve done just fine without us, far predating Homo sapiens and evolving into the world’s second-largest family of flowering plants. Only the sunflower family (Asteraceae) eclipses the Orchidaceae, and not by much.

As for orchids that produce a fragrance, the scent is there to attract moths, a particularly important pollinator group for many species. Moth-pollinated orchids often have an elongate nectar spur. This flower appendage is a tube that contains nectar at its base. Only moths with very long proboscides can plumb the spur’s depths for the sweet reward, and in the process transfer pollen.

Although an estimated 28,000 orchid species grow on the globe, their centers of chief abundance are in tropical regions. Diversity plummets northward and southward. An orchidophile seeking quarry in Ohio has only 46 native species (and one nonnative) to pursue. Colombia, on the other hand, hosts nearly 4,500 species (with more to be discovered).

While Ohio boasts a scant four dozen orchid species, most of them are quite flashy. And some of them can turn up in the darnedest places.

I got a text from Josh McElhaney this spring, alerting me that some orchids had popped up in his suburban Columbus yard. I wrote a column about Josh and his amazing property in August 2022. He has done incredible work in transforming his acre lot into a showcase of native plants.

But he did not plant the orchids. The species in question is ragged fringed orchid (Platanthera lacera), and it is well-known for growing in urban and suburban areas, and often in rather weedy sites. About 17 orchids arose in Josh’s yard this year, and they are in one of the few semi-weedy sites in the yard. Several species of Eurasian grasses are their bedmates.

Josh lives only 15 minutes from me, and smitten with orchid fever, I visited on June 23, jumping the gun a bit. Ragged fringed orchids have elongate flower spikes, and they begin flowering at the base. Only a smattering of flowers were yet open.

My return trip was June 28, and just five days later, most of the orchids were in their showy glory, spikes bedecked with outlandish flowers. The accompanying photo is from that day. A ragged fringed orchid flower is a botanical work of art. The long petals are lacerated into filamentous strips, as if some anti-orchid demon had attacked the flowers with a machete.

Moths play a critical role in ragged fringed orchid pollination, and the flowers are equipped with the obligatory nectar spur. The blooms emit a fragrance towards dusk, which lures a small suite of moth species, including some common looper moths that do well in suburbia. Day-flying hummingbird moths are also known pollinators, and photographically, capturing one of those beauties at the orchid flowers would be the Holy Grail shot.

Ragged fringed orchid is not rare, but it is easily overlooked. Even though big plants can tower to two feet or more, their overall greenish tone helps them blend well with the surroundings. The species occurs throughout eastern North America, from the Gulf Coast to southern Canada. It’s turned up in about half of Ohio’s 88 counties, but might be found in any of them.

The protagonists of this column have certainly found a safe haven.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature atjimmccormac.blogspot.com.