# Orchids as ‘weeds’



## cnycharles (Oct 10, 2020)

For many years I’ve been doing native orchid trips to try and take photos. A number of times I’ve been looking for one thing, but get surprised and find something else completely.
last week, was talking to supervisor about my recently looking for orchids on cape May and that they were like the Spiranthes orchids that we used to grow. She informed me that occasionally some Spiranthes would pop up in some of our stock plant pots and she would pull them out. ‘As a matter of fact’ she said ‘there are some out there now’.

I wondered what the shiny leaves were (d’oh) but hadn’t pulled any myself



The pointy leaves are Spiranthes


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## SouthPark (Oct 10, 2020)

Interesting! Are they 'invasive'? As in ------ do the grow and spread relatively quickly?


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## cnycharles (Oct 10, 2020)

Not sure. I’ve worked at this site less than a year, and don’t know how old the pots/soil is, if they arrived by seed or root parts. I don’t think they’ve sold them for awhile so don’t know the direct source


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## Linus_Cello (Oct 10, 2020)

I don’t think spiranthes are invasive in the NE or Mid Atlantic US. Epipactis helleborine I think would be an orchid considered invasive in this area.


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## SouthPark (Oct 10, 2020)

Linus_Cello said:


> I don’t think spiranthes are invasive in the NE or Mid Atlantic US. Epipactis helleborine I think would be an orchid considered invasive in this area.



Thanks Linus! Very interesting situation with that Epipactis helleborine.


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## SouthPark (Oct 10, 2020)

cnycharles said:


> Not sure. I’ve worked at this site less than a year, and don’t know how old the pots/soil is, if they arrived by seed or root parts. I don’t think they’ve sold them for awhile so don’t know the direct source



Thanks for mentioning that CC!


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## cnycharles (Oct 24, 2020)

I removed quite a few of the Spiranthes that were coming up in the aster stock pots. You can see how many pots of them I made with the plants I pulled! ...and you can see what the roots look like. Where a long root ends, a new shoot begins and emerges to make another plant


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## BrucherT (Oct 25, 2020)

cnycharles said:


> I removed quite a few of the Spiranthes that were coming up in the aster stock pots. You can see how many pots of them I made with the plants I pulled! ...and you can see what the roots look like. Where a long root ends, a new shoot begins and emerges to make another plantView attachment 22809
> View attachment 22810


Which species? Did I miss that? S. cernua?


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## cnycharles (Oct 25, 2020)

I forgot to include. They used to sell Spiranthes cernua var odorata a while ago before my time. They were confirmed as cernua sometime along with the nj coastal Spiranthes that were thought to be odorata, which conventional wisdom says isn’t near this area. These could be offspring or root divisions of ‘chadds ford’, which I think we sold. But in any case it’ll have to flower before I can know what they are, but it’s highly likely they are cernua. Big leaves! Of course these have had lots of fertilizer being in stock pots, and nice mellow temperatures for a perennial so they should be happy


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## NYEric (Oct 26, 2020)

I'll take some.


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## cnycharles (Oct 26, 2020)

I wouldn’t be able to immediately release them right now, have to make sure people at work have what they would want first. A thought might be if I do release some, a receiver could make a donation to the forum?


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## BrucherT (Oct 26, 2020)

cnycharles said:


> I forgot to include. They used to sell Spiranthes cernua var odorata a while ago before my time. They were confirmed as cernua sometime along with the nj coastal Spiranthes that were thought to be odorata, which conventional wisdom says isn’t near this area. These could be offspring or root divisions of ‘chadds ford’, which I think we sold. But in any case it’ll have to flower before I can know what they are, but it’s highly likely they are cernua. Big leaves! Of course these have had lots of fertilizer being in stock pots, and nice mellow temperatures for a perennial so they should be happy


Wow. I have read about "Chadd's Ford" S. cernua but never had one. I look forward to your success!


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