Where Are the Autumn Coralroots?

Late September is the time of year my orchid-hunting pals Sue and Ruth join me to search for Autumn Coralroot Orchids (Corallorhiza odontorhiza). In fact, we used to go searching for two varieties of them, the more common straight species (var. odontorhiza) and the very rare variety (var. pringlei) called Pringle's Autumn Coralroot. But since recently an expert taxonomist has cast doubt on whether we ever actually did find the Pringle's variety at Moreau Lake State Park, we decided to focus our energies on simply seeking out the more-robust straight Autumn Coralroots. That meant we had to climb up into the mountain range that lines the shore of Moreau Lake and follow the Red Oak Ridge Trail.  We had a perfect day to do so this past week, with sunlight dappling a still-green woods. 

Lovely late-summer wildflowers decorated our path as we climbed, including the gracefully arching stems of Blue-stemmed Goldenrod (Solidago caesia) and the abundant clusters of Heart-leaved Aster flowers (Symphyotrichum cordifolium).  Both of these flower species prefer a shady woods to sun-washed roadsides and meadows.

We were definitely pleased to find a solitary plant of American Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) in a hidden place we know of.  Since this is a native plant too long over-gathered (and thus destroyed) by unscrupulous herbalists, we are careful not to reveal where this grows, in a spot well off in the woods.

We were disappointed we did not find a single specimen of the standard variety of Autumn Coralroot, in several places where in past years they were remarkably abundant.  This standard variety with its closed flowers is larger than the ones we once believed were the rarer ones, which are smaller and have open flowers that reveal the sex parts, and also possess a broad petal protruding from the bottom.  Here's my photo of Corallorhiza odontorhiza var. odontorhiza, taken fifteen years ago along this same trail.  Note the closed flowers and no broad lower petal:

It's possible we were looking for Autumn Coralroots along the Red Oak Ridge Trail just too early this year. As this old photo above reveals, yellow leaves littered the forest floor at the time this photo was taken, on October 14, 2011. So far this year, the forest trees are still green.

For comparison, here is one of my file photos of what we believed was the Pringle's Autumn Coralroot flowerhead, which we once found in a quite different location in Moreau Lake State Park. Note the broad lower petal and the open throat. Several years ago, one of our state's expert botanists was able to peer deep into the inner structures of the floret, where he detected internal reproductive organs that were believed to be a defining feature of the Pringle's variety.

We have since been told, however, and by the definer of the taxon himself, that this is most likely a form of the standard Autumn Coralroot.  Darn!

We were pleased, anyway, to find several other forest wildflowers we could recognize, if only by their leaves, since their flowers were long spent. The pale-veined, dark-green basal leaves of Downy Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera pubescens) were very evident, several plants with remnants of their flower stalks still protruding. The leaves of this native orchid will be green all winter.

The vividly patterned dark-green leaves of Striped Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) were also easy to find on the forest floor.  And they, too, can be found on the forest floor all winter, looking as fresh as ever (if you brush away the snow). 

For several years, I had longed to find the pale-veined leaves of Round-leaved Shinleaf (Pyrola americana), and now I realize that many plants of this species populate a forested hillside above Moreau Lake.

Frequent rains during the month of September have inspired a nice crop of fall fungi this year, and we found many interesting ones along the trail. Here's just a sample:

A nice cluster of Jelly Leaf (Phaeotremella foliaceae) on a fallen log.

Tiny discs of Lemon Drop Fungus on a rotting log. Calycina (formerly Bisporella) citrina.  Also called Yellow Fairy Cups.

 Old Man of the Woods (Strobilomyces floccopus), an edible (!) boletus species that grows on the forest floor. Its scientific name can be roughly translated as "woolly mushroom that looks like a pinecone."

The distinctive pores of the Old Man of the Woods:

And here was the beauty queen of the forest-floor fungi today, the Crimson Waxcap (Hygrocybe punicea)! These upturned scarlet caps were at least three inches across (if flattened), much larger than other species of waxcaps, which tend to be quite small.  This species is widely distributed across North America (and in Europe), preferring birch and hemlock forests here in eastern North America, while preferring to grow under redwoods on the West Coast.

Before we left Moreau Lake State Park today, we three friends decided to visit the site where we first detected the Autumn Coralroot later believed to be the rare Pringle's variety.  This site is not up on the mountainside, but closer to the lakeshore and right along our way home.  We agreed this was probably a fool's errand, since why would ANY Autumn Coralroots be blooming down here, since not a single one of the standard species had been found on the mountainside trail earlier in the day?  Well, a surprise awaited us! We actually found a couple DOZEN Autumn Coralroots in the woods between the lakeshore and the beach road.  But which variety were they?  The flowers were certainly not wide open.  But they certainly had wider and more visible petals than did the ones we used to always find along the mountainside trail.

Could it be there are more than TWO varieties of Corallorhiza odontorhiza?  The puzzle remains. But at least we did find ONE of them today!

Come Walk the Lakeshore With Me!

 Oh my, but I sure do feel honored!  The New York Flora Association, a state-wide organization "dedicated to field botany and furthering the understanding of plants that grow wild in New York," is holding their annual meeting on October 4 right here in my favorite stomping grounds, Moreau Lake State Park.  And I have been asked if I would lead a nature walk in the park as one of the day's events.  Well, SURE I will! And I already know where I hope to lead it.  On an easy walk along the beach,  the site where I have found a number of rare plants over the years, right out within easy view. No scrambling up mountain cliffs or slogging through swamps, just an easy walk where the sandy shore meets the surrounding forest.

If you click on this photo, looking toward the north end of Moreau Lake, you might be able to make out a wooden pedestrian bridge that separates the main body of the lake from its smaller back bay. That's where I hope to start our walk.

I sure hope some of these New England Asters will still be blooming by October 4.  They were certainly in their glory this week, masses of bright-purple blooms inviting me to continue across the bridge.

That glorious aster patch was bobbing as if the flowers were blowing in the breeze, but the only breeze was created by the wafting of wings of hundreds of pollinating insects feasting on the asters. This bumblebee was one of the very few that held still enough for the picture-taking!

Directly across the bridge I continued along an inter-lake forested trail, where I can see expanses of blue sparkling water through the trees on both sides. By the first week of October, we should start to see some autumn color in the leaves.

I am delighted that both White Pines and Pitch Pines line this wooded trail, making it easy to distinguish each species by its bark, that of the Pitch Pines rendered most immediately obvious by the reticulated fissures in the bark, reminding me of a giraffe's hide.

Pitch Pines are also interesting because of how they hold onto their cones for several years, so we can find examples of each year's cones together on the same branch.

From this wooded trail we will make our way down to this broad sandy beach, where small flatsedges form lines of greenery in the sand

Here's where we will search for our first rare plant of our walk, called Small-flowered Dwarf Bulrush (Cyperus subsquarrosus). It might take some sharp eyes to find it, since it is very, very small, and it might be starting to fade by October 4. If our state's head botanist, Rich Ring, is with us on this walk, perhaps he might relate our experience of first finding this Endangered species along these shores. (I did record that experience on a blog I posted back in 2018.)

Among the other flatsedges along this sandy shore is this attractive Toothed Flatsedge (Cyperus dentatus), with its golden spikelets.

As we stand on this sandy shore and look up to the forested border, we will note thick hedges of Black Huckleberry shrubs (Gaylussacia baccata).  If we're lucky, these shrubs will have acquired something of their vivid red foliage by the first week of October. Some years, that foliage is a brilliant red, other years a more subtle burgundy red.  But always beautiful.

Here's one of my photos of this huckleberry hedge from a previous mid-October:

As we turn to proceed along the eastern shore of the lake, the aster experts among us might be able to identify the different species of small white aster flowers that grow in masses there.

I can usually identify the Heath Asters (Symphyotrichum ericoides) myself, so compact are its flower clusters and short and sharp are its leaves.

When I first spied the loose cluster of these pale-purple flowers in a wooded clearing, I thought it might be the Heart-leaved Aster.  But then I noticed its leaves were neither heart-shaped nor sharply toothed nor slender stalked. So I took a closer look.

The larger stem leaves of this aster were not toothed at all and their stalks enlarged at the base and clasped the plant's stem.  These leaves sure suggested to me that this was a Wavy-leaved Aster (Symphyotrichum undulatum).

At least I did not have to puzzle over these bright-yellow blooms.  Except I was surprised to find such a fresh-looking bunch of flowers this late in summer on an Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis). Most of the other Evening Primrose plants along this shore now bore clusters of seedpods instead of flowers.

A number of small trees hung their branches over the shore, and the hop-like seedpods of this tree made it immediately evident that this was Hop Hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana).

The leaves of Mapleleaf Viburnum (Viburnum acerifolia) had yet to acquire their beautiful autumn pinky-purple color, but I was glad to see the shrub had produced a cluster of berries.

As I neared the shoreline where I would turn into a deep cove, my eyes swept the forested high banks where in other years dozens and dozens of Green Rock Cress plants (Borodinia missouriensis) were immediately made visible by their cascading slender siliques.  Aha!  I did spy one specimen, anyway.  As is typical of biennial plants like this, the populations of this state-ranked Threatened species seem to vary from year to year, but at least I was encouraged to see this one bearing seed.  When state botanist Rich Ring and I scoured this bank a few years ago, we found abundant numbers of these plants thriving here. (I recorded that visit on my blog as well.)

Since Borodinia missouriensis is a very humble-appearing plant with tiny, un-showy flowers, in some parts of this park it has not escaped roadside mowing before the plants could drop mature seeds, so the populations no longer persist at those locations.  At least this plant grows on a steep wooded bank where no mowers can threaten it.

I've now reached the deep cove where we will head toward the final destination of our nature walk on October 4.  I sure hope we can make it this far, because one of the rarest plants in the park, the Endangered Whorled Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum verticillatum var. verticillatum), grows along this cove.

Masses of Gray Dogwood (Cornus racemosa) and Buttonbush shrubs (Cephalanthus occidentalis)  flourish at the edge of the wide sandy shore along this cove.

The red seedpods of the Buttonbush are just as attractive as the spheres of tiny white flowers had been.

I sure hope the birds will not have devoured ALL the Sassafras berries before we have a chance to delight in them on our nature walk.  (Sassafras albidum)

Masses of late-summer wildflowers fill the edges of this cove.

This bee was feasting on the nectar (or pollen?) of flowers of White Snakeroot (Ageratina altissima), a plant that is known to poison most other animals that would dare to eat it.

This lovely little Pearl Crescent butterfly was feeding on one of the small white asters that thrive on this shore.

There were at least two species of Smartweed (Persicaria sp.) growing on this sandy shore, one with pale-pink nodding flowers and the other with deeper-pink more-erect flowers. I did not examine the plants closely enough to determine the species of each, so this could be a task for any of the more-knowledgeable botanists who might be taking this walk.

This was a very small plant of Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata), but you could not miss noticing such bright-blue flowers.

I hope we reach these plants of Blue Curls (Trichostema dichotomum) before they drop their tiny flowers with the distinctive curving anthers (early afternoon). If not, we could probably find the intact flowers littering the sand.  And their seed pods are just as cute as the flowers.

I do hope we might find a plant of two of Small-flowered Agalinis (Agalinis paupercula) still blooming.  The shores of Moreau Lake are the only place I have ever found this pretty late-summer flower, once rated as a Rare species in New York.  They certainly are not rare along certain damper stretches of this lake's shoreline.

We should find more of that Endangered species, Small-flowered Dwarf Bulrush (Cyperus subsquarrosus), along this sandy shore, too. If they haven't shriveled beyond recognition by this October date. They do disappear after frost.

But this final plant of our seeking today, the Whorled Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum verticillatum var. verticillatum), is usually quite visible well after frost, the sturdy bracts of its tiny florets now bearing seeds.  We once counted over 270 specimens of this Endangered species along this cove, but varying water levels in the lake affect how many plants will emerge each year. At least they continue to persist, in varying numbers each year.  I found them in good shape this year, so I'm excited to think that our friends in the New York Flora Association will be able to see them for sure.

I don't know what's turning some of the Whorled Mountain Mint seed clusters black, but I sure hope whatever might be causing this does not imperil the future of this population along the shores of Moreau Lake.

A few more pretty things awaited me on my return walk along the lakeshore.  A bright-red Autumn Meadow Hawk dragonfly, and a bright-yellow Amanita mushroom standing beside a multi-colored Big Tooth Aspen leaf.

UPDATE: My good friend and fellow nature-nut Sue Pierce returned with me to the shore of Moreau Lake to re-trace our NYFA walk route a couple of days later.  Sue's excellent eyesight always spots items I miss.  So I took a few more photos and Sue sent me one.  Here's Sue examining the site where we first stopped to examine the rare Cyperus subsquarrosus (Small-flowered Dwarf Flatsedge).

And wouldn't you know it, Sue on this exploration trip found and identified another, much less rare flatsedge that goes by the very similar name of Cyperus squarrosus (Awned Flatsedge):

(Photo by Sue Pierce)

On my own first circuit of this shore, I missed seeing this pretty blue-flowered Heart-leaved Aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolia) with its definitely heart-shaped leaves.

I turned one of the Heart-leaved Aster leaves over to examine the leaf veins, determining that those veins lay much flatter to the leaf than did those of the White Wood Aster, which can appear very similar. Sometimes the blue flowers of Heart-leaved Aster can be so pale as to appear nearly white.

I was prepared to ignore as "ho-hum" non-native lawn weeds several plantain plants that grew on a pebbly part of the shore, but Sue reminded me of what expert botanist Steve Young had shown us on a walk along the Hudson Ice Meadows earlier this year.  These particular plantains had reddish leaf and flower stalks, which most likely indicated that these plants were our native species called Rugel's Plantain (Plantago rugelii).  Not a rare plant, but one that is native to our part of North America.

When we pushed back into the woods that lined the shore, we were startled to see such beauty as these  ground-covering masses of Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) that had turned this vivid color of pink.

Often, when Sue and I find a patch of masses of wildflowers, we like to station ourselves in the midst, just to observe the insects that mob the flowers, seeking their nectar and pollen. This gorgeous Great Black Wasp (Sphex pensylvanicus) was the most common visitor today, its iridescent wings flashing cobalt blue in the light as it visited many flowers. There's no need to fear being stung by this solitary ground-dwelling wasp, since it has no colony to defend, simply some single holes in the ground where the female wasp will stuff its paralyzed katydid or grasshopper prey for its larvae to feed on when they hatch.

Who wants to bet that we still missed plenty of "good stuff" on this second trip along the same shore?  I can hardly wait to find out what treasures still remain to be espied, especially when some of the seekers will be very expert botanists.