Some wild orchids

I had to mow my lawn today. One of the yaupon hollies decided, for some reason, to do a mess of sucker sprouts off its roots. (I don't know why ONE of them did it and not the other. I can't remember now if yaupons are dioecious or not, and if so, would one sex or the other be more likely to sucker-sprout. I HOPE it doesn't mean that one bush is sick....)

So I wanted to mow down the sprouts, and also get some of the tall straggly cruddy grass that invaded after disturbance (having my yard torn up a few years ago to replace the water line into the house).

But, I held off, because the wild orchids that live in my lawn were getting ready to flower, and I wanted them to get to the point where the flowers were out so I could SEE them clearly and avoid them. Because I don't want to mow down wild orchids.



Here's the single-flowering-stalked one. (It's been a banner year for these; there are more flowering than I've ever seen in my yard). This is Spiranthes cernua also known as "nodding ladies' tresses orchid."

I knew this species from Illinois, where it was pretty much considered a threatened species. It seems to be moderately common in prairies here (it's on one of my field sites). I assume that my yard, way back when (even before it was part of the Dixon Durant farm, in the very early days of the last century), must have been prairie.

And it makes me wonder how many years these things were in hiding, how many summers they tried to send up flowering stalks only to get them mowed down? I don't know how long orchids live but some perennial wild plants can live for a hundred years or more. (It's also possible these things had enough years they set seed to keep the population going - I have no idea how good seed germination is in these). I'm quite sure no one planted them, because of where they're located in the yard.



This year, a couple of the plants even sent up multiple flowering stalks - this one has three. (All told, there are six or seven stalks I can see in the yard. I mowed carefully around them all)

I know I tend to see things as being more symbolic than they actually are, but way back in September 2001, when I first bought the house, it had also been several weeks since the lawn was mowed and when I came over here after officially taking possession of the house, I saw the orchid flowering stalks. And I took it as a good omen - because I am a prairie ecologist, because I had seen these before but only in a state where they were rare and uncommon, and because I have long been a fan of Nero Wolfe mysteries, and Wolfe famously has an orchid collection (though I think he only went for the very showy varieties, and ladies'-tresses are very small and quiet as orchids go).

Every year, I watch and hope to see if they flower. They don't, always. It seems like years when we have a wet spring followed by a hot, dry summer are the years in which it sends up flowering stalks.

I'm always happy to see them. I want them to continue. I'd like, whenever, for whatever reason, I pass the house to another person that the orchids are still there, and maybe I can point them out - and hopefully, the person will treasure them as I do.