Canada native orchid trip II

[cnycharles]

At our next stop at a privately owned fen somewhat near perth, ontario we set out to see thousands of showy ladyslippers. A sign along the road near the property states that 'showy ladyslippers 'are' in flower'. It seems a little late so I thought we might have missed them, but hope springs eternal!

we make our way to the slipper boardwalk, and we find this plant first
(bummer!) it is clearly out of bloom by several days and we think that
we may have missed them

ken and jerry find some slippers in flower and set up to get some pictures

the next six images are of showy ladyslippers in and past bloom. they
aren't overly brightly colored, but it's still still nice to see them. we
see many spent flowers, so it would be nice sometime to see the actual
thousands while they are all in flower!

butterfly resting near the boardwalk

pink pyrola, occasionally found here

some miniature horsetails growing out of a small stump, near
the entrance to the boardwalk area

 

[Erythrone]

Thanks for sharing! When did you go there? I suppose you went a few months ago?

 

[cnycharles]

we next went on to ompah fen early in the afternoon so that we could get the 'lay of the land' before we seriously looked for orchids. we didn't really know the shape or layout of the fen/woods/swamp, so wanted to use some available daylight to find things first.

we didn't find what we expected, which was an easy way into the 'open area' of the fen, and we expended a fair amount of sweat and swatting at biting bugs where the wind wasn't blowing so much. I did find some orchids that evening and then some the next morning, but not exactly what we had expected or hoped to see. we were really hoping to find the roundleafed orchis in flower here, though the guide who had given us the instructions hadn't himself been here since the 1980's. on his map, it showed the residence of the then landowner, so we went in hopes of finding him so that he could show us where the orchids might be. it turned out that the person we found was not the owner, and he informed us that he'd passed away about ten years ago (ouch) and that the new owner who was a business person and with recent canadian environmental laws, if he found out there were rare plants on the property we and all future visitors might be expressly forbidden from visiting the orchid sites (double and triple ouch!)

so, we parked unobtrusively and snuck around, what many good native orchid searchers end up doing when it's not really 'clear' if they are welcome or not, but aren't interested in drawing attention to themselves

Just so you all know, previous visitors with the former landowner had permission, and the new landowner hasn't put up posted signs, so there never has been any trespassing

these first pics are with my iphone, will post descriptions and camera pics later

we did find showy ladyslippers in nice shape, early coralroot past flowering
in seed, amerorchis rotundifolia past flower, green bog orchis in flower and seed,
pink pyrola and heartleaf twayblade. we may have found also either yellow
ladyslippers or northern yellow ladyslippers well past bloom, and bog laurel and
epipactis helleborine

we did go to another open treed fen later on, but something had happened or we were far off track, as we found no orchids other than epipactis helleborine. there were supposed to be a good number of white adders mouth orchids and a large number of other things

 

[cnycharles]

The next morning we did go to a maple farm where they collected and boiled maple sap, and they also had a few museums and a restaurant where we happily had fantastic pancakes with their home-made maple syrup, checked out their ancient chainsaw museum and saw their sap boilers (and brought some syrup home thank you very much)

one of their maple evaporators

jerry and ken pose near some of the larger evaporators

yours truly posing with his maple syrup (if my stomach is sticking
out a bit it's because I ate so many pancakes and sausage....)

there were too many chainsaws in the museum so I had to take a video of the whole room which is posted below
Chainsaw Museum video

 

[cnycharles]

Thanks for sharing! When did you go there? I suppose you went a few months ago?

yes, that was in july. I have been kind of busy so hadn't gotten around to posting the rest of the pictures yet

 

[Migrant13]

Thanks for sharing your interesting journey!

 

[cnycharles]

last of the canada trip pics, taken with my canon 30d

showy ladyslippers

amerorchis rotundifolia

showing dried up flowers and seed pods

heartleaf twayblade

heartleaf twayblade, three plants

probably northern small yellow ladyslipper

pink pyrola

twinnea borealis

 

[NYEric]

Nice. Thanks for sharing.

 

[abax]

The Showy is my favorite Cyp. and used to grow abundantly in the south-eastern KY area. Sadly, it's disappearing. Thank you for the nice trip
without the bugs.

 

[cnycharles]

Thank you for the nice trip without the bugs.

it's the ones who know there are lots of bugs at these places that I know appreciate these pictures the most
Some spots have so many bugs I have to wear a hooded sleeved mesh bug shirt, and then sometimes they buzz around so thickly in front of your face you still swat instinctively which doesn't make photographing much fun
Ken can tell you of a spot in the adirondacks near Vermont where there were so many Mosquitos there was a clearly droning hum from their wings

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

yes, that was in july. I have been kind of busy so hadn't gotten around to posting the rest of the pictures yet

OK, I thought I was losing my mind - Cyps in flower in September?? Don't feel bad about processing stuff way after the fact. I'm still chewing on videos taken last year in China!