It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Of all the countless things your narrator looks forward to throughout any growing season, there's one moment in particular that stands out among the rest.  For a brief week or two in the latter half of June, a handful of special wet meadows in our state come alive with my favorite and most anticipated of wildflowers in the federally threatened eastern prairie fringed orchid (Platanthera leucophaea).

Handful of prairie fringed orchids in perfect flower in their open wet meadow habitat

I've taken the time to publish a post commemorating their culmination of beauty each of the last few years and see no reason to give up on the tradition anytime soon.  You can view the previous posts and dig deeper into this great rarity's past by clicking the links HERE and HERE for more information.  There's just something about this magnificent species that I struggle to put into words but the least I can do is try, right?

Eastern Prairie Fringed Orchid

Only being 15 minutes or so away from my childhood home in west-central Ohio, the site and plants featured in this post and the ones previous are a quick and easy visit and allow for plenty of opportunities to soak in their detail and extraordinary charm.  An evening visit is the best of all as the late-June sun sits low in the sky and its last vestiges of sunlight seem to make the orchids glow in the twilight.  The allure of their off-white, creamish flowers is accented by a soft but sugared aroma that is nocturnally emitted and used to attract the plant's nighttime hawk moth pollinators.

Portrait of the rare prairie fringed orchid

The eastern prairie fringed orchid was once much more common across its Great Lakes and Midwest distribution with accounts from the early pioneers and settlers speaking of wet prairie and meadows ensconced with dense blazes of tall spikes of white flowers come late June into July.  Since then, habitat loss and degradation from both agricultural pressure and the forces of natural succession has pushed this species to the brink of extinction with nearly all of its former grandeur long lost to the plow or tile.  Its affinity for deep, rich, and moist soil was undoubtedly its own undoing as farmers replaced these marvelous orchids with their corn, soybeans, and wheat.

Impressive specimen of prairie fringed orchid

If I was ever asked to pick and elaborate on my favorite moment and view of my home state it would be an incredibly difficult and painful process to narrow down but I would most likely ultimately settle on the prairie fringed orchid in perfect full bloom out across a wide expanse of grasses, sedges, and rushes.  I don't expect everyone to appreciate let alone understand my passion for this plant or why its beauty intoxicates me the way it does; heck, I don't even know why exactly it strikes such a chord with me but it does and I am eternally thankful for that.  With as busy and hectic as life often is, it's important that we all seek out small opportunities of peace and happiness where we can feel whole and as one with everything else.  They may be fleeting and few and far between but even the smallest of things can have the biggest of impacts in our lives and for your narrator, any time out in the field with these wonders is time well spent.

A friend of mine recently mentioned that the great orchid mind that was Fred Case used to say that the blooming of the prairie fringed orchid was a bittersweet moment each year where the culmination of another growing season has come and gone and ushered in the waning sunlight and slow but steady return of fall and winter.  Wise words worth taking to heart if you ask me.

A Rare Orchid on the Prairies

Late June.  When the heightened humidity begins to make your clothes stick and the hum of annual cicadas rings in your ears; when the sun seems to hang motionless in the western sky and the raspberries are just about ripe, I know it's time to make my annual pilgrimage to a very special slice of Ohio.

E. Prairie Fringed Orchid (Platanthera leucophaea)

In a wet sedge meadow that seems no different than the rest but for a few short weeks each summer lives one of North America's most rare and spectacular of orchids: the eastern prairie fringed orchid (Platanthera leucophaea). I've posted on this site and species in years past but it deserves a breath of fresh air and some more attention as one of your blogger's most treasured of plants.

Lone orchid among the sea of sedges, forbs, and willows

In the past few years a few willow species (Salix discolor, S. eriocephala, and S. interior) have aggressively invaded and taken over the previously woody-free meadow.  This added competition combined with the stress from heat and drought of summers past had the prairie fringed orchids bloom much less vigorously than in previous seasons.  What two years ago was a profusion of blooming orchids, this section had only one flowering plant that I could locate.

E. Prairie Fringed Orchid (Platanthera leucophaea)

That being said there was still quite a few specimens in stupendous shape if you knew where to look.  Finding and enjoying their beauty pre-settlement wouldn't have been too hard a task throughout the fen and wet prairie regions of Ohio and the mid west/great lake states.  Being a life long fan of Big Ten football and basketball, I nicknamed this the "Big Ten orchid" for almost its entire geographical range occurring within states that are home to a conference's campus.

Closer look at their charming individual flowers

Within its wet prairie/meadow/marsh, fen, and shoreline habitats, prairie fringed orchid can grow upwards of four feet tall and contain well over 20 greenish-cream flowers spiraled around its stalk.  Each individual flower is about the size of a quarter and has its lower lip (labellum) deeply cut in a fringed fashion; almost as if the wind had shred and tattered tissue paper.  Their scent is light and faintly detectable by day but intensifies at night when its hawk and sphinx moth pollinators are most active and in the hunt for a nectar snack.

Handful of orchids peaking out above the sedges and grasses

I could witness these wondrous summer rarities every summer for the next 50 years and each meeting would be as precious and held dear as the last.  For your blogger nothing beats the sight of the prairie fringed orchids dancing in the warm summer breezes and their cream, waxy flowers gleaming in the sunlight.  There's little comparable to seeing their conspicuous wands contrasted against the surrounding green vegetation and brilliant sapphire sky.

A lovely pair of prairie fringed orchids

It may be hard to believe but the plant on the left in the photograph above could very well be older than I am. Fred Case, a brilliant botanist and master of North America's orchids recorded some plants eclipsing 30 years in age as an individual.  That's a lot of time, energy, and luck that has gone into an orchid that has evaded and escaped drought, flood, disease, browsing, and any kind of negative habitat change.  Just another reason to respect and appreciate these orchids not just for their looks but for their brawn as well.

E. Prairie Fringed Orchid (Platanthera leucophaea)

One of the more fun aspects to writing and publishing this blog is the opportunity to bring rare and unusual plants and habitats/ecosystems (like the prairie fringed orchid) home to those who cannot see or experience it for themselves.  I do my best to bring these topics and photos to life on your computer monitors and have you travel vicariously into the field with me; especially at sites and places as sensitive and secret as the prairie fringed orchids.

Orchid hiding alongside a spotted joe-pye weed (Eupatoriadelphus maculatus)

It really does seem like just the other day I was alongside these very orchids, admiring their physical charm and ghostly appearance like I am again a year later.  Even more difficult to believe is July is upon us again with so many more wonderful wildflowers and orchids to grace our landscape with their presence.  But you can't have July before you have the prairie fringed orchids knocking on the summer solstice's door once more...

The Federally Threatened Prairie Fringed Orchid

I've always had a collective attitude of sorts throughout my life.  First it was pogz.  Does any other person my age, maybe a bit older remember pogz from the early 90's?  They were cardboard poker chip-like things you played a game with, trying to flip them over with a weighted plastic piece.  I distinctly remember having an affinity for ones that had an eight ball design or a ying-yang.  Funny what the brain remembers huh?  Anyways.  From that I moved on to sports cards then autographs and movie memorabilia.  Like I said I always have to be working towards the completion of a set or goal.  Botany has been the most fun outlet for my never ending drive to find that next great piece or rarity and I don't see that stopping anytime soon.  Naturally as time goes by I have created a list of what species I want to see and photograph the most.  A 'life' list to say or maybe a 'hall of fame' to put it best.  I've been fortunate to have checked off quite a few species on this so far but one big one has evaded me the past few years.  As fate would have it this past late June I got the opportunity to strike off one mighty beast of a lifer.  Not only is it an orchid (go figure right?) but a federally threatened species to boot.  The Eastern Prairie Fringed Orchid (Platanthera leucophaea).

Typical muggy and steamy Ohio summer sunset

As I was making the drive back home from the Bruce peninsula my phone rang with excellent news on the other end.  The Prairie Fringed orchid I'd been waiting months, years to see was in perfect full-flower in a wet sedge meadow in Clark County.  By the time my muddy and bug covered Forester arrived at the site it was getting to be evening and the sun was waning in the sky with thunderstorms threatening on the horizon.  The potential storms only added electricity to the already charged situation at hand as my eyes gazed out across waving tops of vegetation swaying in the breeze.  My eyes immediately picked out the tall, dancing stalks of cream colored flowers mixed in with the shorter grasses and sedges.  There they were in all their majestic splendor.

Platanthera leucophaea mixed in among the grasses and sedges

I'd waited a long time for this moment.  I slowly waded into the sea of graminoids, carefully watching my step as dozens of other orchids were still in tight bud and blending in with the vegetation.  The thunder that rolled in the distance through the dense and muggy atmosphere could have easily been mistaken for my racing heartbeat as I approached the first creamy wand in the meadow.  "Perfection", I thought as I knelt down to inspect it's stunning inflorescence.  It really doesn't get much better than this.

Platanthera leucophaea

Platanthera leucophaea

The first thing that really struck me about this orchid was its size and proportion.  Rising nearly four feet into the air with individual flowers the size a of quarter, the tall racemes of blooms appeared like small, white ghosts dancing about in the wind.  Each stalk can have upwards of 40 flowers, all with a very distinctive three-lobed lip.  Each lobe is heavily fringed as if some little fairy took an equally small pair of scissors and carefully cut the lobes into their delicately designed fringes.

Platanthera leucophaea

Just beginning to break bud

Each plant comes back year after year from an underground tuber that sends up a 1-4' stalk that matures and blooms in late June into early July.  Its leaves are alternately arranged up the stem decreasing in size as they ascend until they are merely bract-like protrusions.  Each leaf is narrow and lanceolate in shape and sheath the stem.  Like all other orchids this species can be very fickle from year to year in regards to blooming.  In fact, one Ohio population went dormant for decades before reacting to a burn.  The flowers are nocturnally scented like most Platanthera species of orchid.  Attracted by their sweet scent, Sphinx and Hawkmoths pollinate the flowers as they probe the inflorescences long, nectar-filled spur for a tasty meal.  An interesting fact about this plant is its surprising longevity.  In some cases individual plants are known to have lived for over 30 years, making large populations of this plant with healthy plants potentially an ancient organism as a whole.

North American distribution map for P. leucophaea (courtesy: BONAP(

As mentioned before the E. Prairie Fringed orchid is not just state listed as threatened in Ohio but its listed at the federal level as well.  Quite rare throughout its entire North American range, this orchid is listed as threatened, endangered or extirpated in every state and Canadian province (only Ontario) it's ever been found in.  Looking at the current distribution map above you can see it's concentrated mostly within the Great Lake states with a preference for those with a lot of wet prairie and meadow habitat (historically speaking), such as Illinois and Iowa.  Despite its current scarcity it was once much more common in the states highlighted above.  Unfortunately this plant and farmers share in the same love and preference for where it grows best and the farmers have won 99.99% of the time.  Most of Ohio's populations met their plow fate decades ago but some still cling to life in Clark, Lucas, Sandusky and Wayne counties to name a few.  Habitat destruction and degradation of its wetland habitat of fens, wet prairies, sedge meadows and even bogs have caused this species populations to decline severely across is range.  Even areas undisturbed by humans are still at risk from natural succession of the meadows and prairies to thickets and forest.  This orchid needs maximum amounts of sunlight and cannot compete with the shade producing woody vegetation that eventually encroaches.

Platanthera leucophaea

Platanthera leucophaea

This population is under ownership and management by the city of Dayton from what I understand and is actively managed to keep woody competition at bay and its specific list of habitat needs met.  It's small slice of wet sedge meadow is in a sea of corn and soybean fields running along the Mad River.  I'd love to believe that 300 years ago many meadow and fen openings in the river valley were filled with tens of thousands of these plants come late June.  I can imagine cooling myself off from the humid summer heat in a deep and cold pool of fresh spring water from the Mad and climb up the bank to be greeted by that green and cream colored sea of Prairie Fringed orchids.  Ah, the mind is a wonderful thing that is truly a dream-maker that never disappoints.

Your blogger and a fresh orchid

Absolutely stunning aren't they?

I decided to snap a quick picture of your blogger and a particularly fine specimen to help show off this plant's impressive size and beauty.  I found it a bit humorous that this elusive and very sought after orchid ended up being just a 15 minute drive from my home town of Tipp City in Miami County.  Needless to say my first experience with these incredible plants was not my last as I came back on several occasions to do population counts (well over 200 flowering plants this year) and get lost in their perfection.

Louder cracks of thunder and more frequent flashes of lightning eventually caused me to give in to the approaching storm and I made for the car with several glances back to the meadow to catch the orchids dancing ever more hectically in the squalling winds.  This is not a day I would soon forget and am very thankful to have experienced, especially as the delicious cherry on top of my Bruce peninsula sundae I was just arriving back from.  I can't imagine my beloved state of Ohio welcoming home one of its native sons in any finer fashion.

One more look...

I entirely meant to write and publish this post well over a month ago but somehow time and opportunity seems to slip needlessly through the cracks in the floorboards but better late than never!  I don't know how many of you have ever seen or had the chance to experience this impossibly awesome orchid so I was really excited to help with the introduction.  Long may this species thrive in this little patch of fen sedge meadow full of other neat botanical goodies.  This was definitely one of my favorite posts to reminisce on and write up and I certainly hope you were half as entertained as I!