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!