Monday, January 5, 2015

Airstrip Orchid

This past summer after a relatively uneventful day near Hagersville (is there any other type?), I was walking through a wet meadow, getting ready to head home when I nearly stepped on this ragged beauty of an orchid (is there any other type?). 

Ragged-fringed Orchid (Platanthera lacera) resembles the Endangered Prairie White-fringed Orchid (Platanthera leucophaea); Michigan Flora differentiates the two by sepal length and lateral petal shape.  Catling and Bronwell wrote an interesting article on hybridity based on orchid populations at the Holland Marsh.  I believe the nearest population of P. leucophaea from Hagersville is known from Delaware/Komoka, about 100km west.  Very rarely there are albino specimens of Smaller Purple-fringed Orchid (Platanthera psycodes), but on the off chance you came across one, the depth of the petal laceration would steer you clear of P. lacera in the key.


The species epithet 'lacera' is latin for torn in reference to the labellum (lip) of the flower.  Ragged for sure. 
 

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