Backyard Native Orchid Discovery

Southern slender ladies tresses orchid (Spiranthes lacera var. gracilis)

 

Yesterday I was puttering in my garden deadheading spent flowers, taking stock of the damage the deer and the seventeen-year locusts have wrought this year, when my eye was caught by a small spike of white flowers springing from the lawn behind my fenced veggie plot. I went over to take a closer look, and to my great surprise, saw the tiny flowers were arranged in a familiar spiral pattern--could it be a ladies tresses orchid? It sure looked like it!

 

Native orchid in the lawn.

I grabbed my phone to take some photos. The spike was no taller than about 8 to 10 inches, with the spirals closely wound, and no visible basal leaves. The more I looked, the more certain I became that it was indeed a native orchid, it had to be one of the ladies tressses species that blooms at this time of the year. How incredible to find one in our lawn!

 

I Emailed a photo of it to Sally, one of my botanist friends from the Virginia Native Plant Society (VNPS) to confirm my suspicions and see if she could help me identify the particular species. She confirmed that it was a southern lady's tresses, Spiranthes lacera var. gracilis. Apparently the southern species variety is hairless and the leaves aren't present when it blooms, whereas the northern variety of the species, Spiranthes lacera var. lacera, is hairy and the leaves are present at blooming time. The green spot on the labellum is another clue to the southern variety.

Since this is the first time I've seen the orchid in my lawn, I wondered how it could have sprouted there. This native orchid is common in disturbed areas in my region (including lawns), and it's possible that it has been growing there for some time, but was mowed in other years, and so I never noticed it, or it could be the orchid's first year producing bloom. Who knows? We'll have to make sure it doesn't get mowed, so that perhaps it can set seed and begin to multiply. How lovely it would be to have a colony of these delicate native orchids in my yard!