#grass pink

[vandaliatraveler]

Summer on the Highland Scenic Highway, Part 2: The Not-So-Secret Life of a Mountain Bog.

Cranberry Glades is one of the great natural features of the Yew Mountains, a highly-diverse ecological complex of sphagnum bogs, marshes, and beaver-engineered wetlands located in a frost pocket between the mountains (link here to an informative video on how these areas form). Many of plants and animals found here migrated southward from Canada and New England as the glaciers advanced during the last ice age and were subsequently "stranded" in the local mountains when the planet warmed and the glaciers retreated. Some of these species, including bog rosemary and mourning warbler, are at their southern-most ranges. West Virginia's greatest naturalist, Maurice Brooks, once described high elevation bogs such as Cranberry Glades as a "bit of Canada gone astray". Their highly-acidic environments host plant communities uniquely suited to survive in them, including the carnivorous sundew and lovely, delicate orchids, such as grass pinks and rose pogonias. And during the first couple weeks of summer, the show is on.

From top: tall meadow-rue (Thalictrum pubescens), also known as king of the meadow; meadow phlox (Phlox maculata), also known as wild sweet William and marsh phlox; grass pink (Calopogon tuberosus), also known as tuberous grasspink; rose pogonia (Pogonia ophioglossoides), also known as snakemouth orchid; a stunning orchard orbweaver spider (Leucauge venusta); swamp candles (Lysimachia terrestris), also known as earth loosestrife; fringed loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata), yet another gorgeous summer primrose; greater purple-fringed orchid (Platanthera grandiflora), a true beauty of Appalachia's shady seeps; a group of chanterelles (maybe Cantharellus appalachiensis?); scarlet beebalm (Monarda didyma), also known as Oswego tea; swamp dewberry (Rubus hispidus); great rhodendron (Rhododendron maximum), which is just starting to bloom in the mountains; and the extraordinary green flower garlands of green false hellebore (Veratrum viride), the grand final act of this lovely but deadly mountain plant before it goes dormant in the summer heat.

[julesofnature]

"Nature is the love story our hearts forever read."  ~Angie Weiland-Crosby

This gorgeous wildflower is called grass pink and it is in the Orchid family (Orchidaceae). The genus name “Calopogon” is Greek and means “beautiful beard.” It refers to the hairlike structures on the upper petal. It has a bulb-like corm that resembles a tuber, hence the name “tuberosus.” The slender grass-like leaves give rise to the name “grass pink.” It is a stunning wildflower. https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/calopogon_tuberosus.shtml

[faguscarolinensis]

Dianthus armeria / Deptford Pink on the Flatirons Vista Trail in Boulder, CO

[thebashfulbotanist]

This Wednesday’s Weed is Dianthus armeria, a really pretty flower found here in Lewis County, Washington State, where it does not belong. It’s native to Europe, but has been spread to North America and New Zealand. Its common names include grass pink and Deptford pink. Dianthus flowers are called pinks not because they’re often pink (and they really are!), but because of the serrate petals that look almost as if they were cut with pinking shears. In fact, the color pink was named for Dianthus pinks!

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

Calopogon tuberosus - A beautiful native orchid with the rather boring common name ‘grass pink’

[debunkshy]

Dun Skipper on Grass Pink

Dark Lake, WI, 7-22-17

[vandaliatraveler]

Orchid Collection from Cranberry Glades.  From May through September, the high elevation sphagnum bogs and spruce-northern hardwood forests of the Allegheny Mountains produce a steady stream of terrestrial orchids. Prime time orchid season around Cranberry Glades is mid-June through early July, when the showiest orchids hit their peak.  As a note, many of these orchids are wetlands-dependent and are endangered or threatened throughout much of their range due to habitat loss.

From top: grass pink (Calopogon tuberosus), unusual among orchids in that its lip is at the top of the flower, making it appear upside down; rose pogonia (Pogonia ophioglossoides), also known as snakemouth orchid due to its elaborate lower lip with pink and yellow-tinged teeth; downy rattlesnake plantain (Goodyera pubescens), a shade-tolerant woodland orchid that was just beginning to send up its flowering stalks; Round-leaved rein orchid (Platanthera orbiculata), or dinner-plate orchid, another terrestrial woodland orchid; large purple-fringed orchid (Platanthera grandiflora), or greater purple-fringed bog orchid, a tall, showy wetlands lover with a special fondness for damp seeps that get full or dappled sunlight; northern tubercled bog orchid (Platanthera flava), or pale green orchid, whose tiny flowers are distinguished by conspicuous bumps (tubercles) on their lower lips; and lily-leaved twayblade (Liparis liliifolia), a very unusual orchid whose flowers mimic the color of carrion to lure flies, which pollinate them.

[julesofnature]

“To rise above treeline is to go above thought, and after, the descent back into bird song, bog orchids, willows, and firs is to sink into the preliterate parts of ourselves.” -- Gretel Ehrlich