Yellow-fringed Orchid, and Butterflies

Last Thursday, August 1, I made an epic photographic foray into Shawnee State Forest. I really needed a hardcore solo shoot, and besides it was an 18-hour day (only had one day) and I can't find many photogs who will put up with such an agenda :-). Many interesting observations and images were made.

This vast southern Ohio forest is full of biological riches, and I had several primary targets in mind, not the least of which is featured here. The yellow-fringed orchids, Platanthera ciliaris, were just starting to flower, and I wanted to work some more on attempting to capture their pollinators.

Yellow-fringed orchid is staggering in its beauty. Seeing a meadow dotted with gorgeous spikes of orangish-yellow flowers is an amazing experience, and as always I spend time just drinking in the scene.

But before long, the photographic game was afoot. Swallowtail butterflies are the pollinators (moths may visit at night, but I don't know that firsthand). As these butterflies are big, and the orchid's flower spikes are large, I arm myself as I would for birds. I lug out a lightweight camo chair, tripod, and telephoto lens. In this case, the rig was the Canon 5D IV and Canon's stellar 400mm f/2.8 II, with fill flash from a Canon 600 speedlite. I select the most conspicuous of the orchids, set up 15-20 feet away, and await my quarry.

At one point, a male zabulon skipper, Poanes zabulon, chose "my" orchid as a lookout. Male zabs are feisty as can be, and often sit in a conspicuous spot from which they dash out at nearly anything that flies by. Hoping for females, I suppose. This skipper could not have chosen a showier perch.

A spicebush swallowtail, Papilio troilus, drops in for nectar. Yes! This is what I wanted. The butterfly's long proboscis, and ability to hover/perch, allows it access to the nectaries that are deeply imbedded in the base of the long nectar spurs. In the process of mining its sugary reward, the swallowtail pollinates the plant.

I saw other swallowtails - only spicebush, I rarely see other species - nectaring at distant orchids. That's somewhat frustrating - over here! over here! I feel like shouting - but chasing them madly about with camera is no way to operate. It's just likely to spook the butterflies, and rushing into position makes it tough to compose a nice image.

Better to set up out of the pollinator's sphere of awareness, in perfect light and on a prime plant, and let the subject come to you.

Ohio's orchid species can grab attention, but many species are threatened

Yellow-fringed orchid, Platanthera ciliaris

Columbus Dispatch

September 4, 2016

NATURE
Jim McCormac

For the orchidophile, a trip to Colombia’s tropical forests would be living a dream. The country harbors several thousand species. Orchids new to science are routinely discovered.

In the world of flowering plants (angiosperms), the orchid family might be the most diverse: An estimated 24,000 species exist worldwide. The only rival is the sunflower family, which has about the same number of species.

For Ohio orchid hunters, prey is far scarcer than in Colombia. Nonetheless, 46 native species are found in the state. There is probably at least one species in every county.

The range of Ohio’s small suite of indigenous orchids represents an artist’s palette of color. Pink, orange, ivory, emerald, purple and other colors paint a fantastic diversity of flower structures.

Among our showiest orchids are those in the genus Platanthera. There are (or were) 12 Ohio species, and most are big and spectacular.

I recently had the pleasure of viewing perhaps the most spectacular Platanthera orchid of all: the yellow fringed orchid, P. ciliaris. This plant is otherworldly in appearance and sure to stop people in their tracks.

A robust yellow fringed orchid rises to almost 2 feet tall, capped by a robust cluster of dozens of flowers. It is these flowers that cause jaws to drop. Their color is a gorgeous orange-yellow, a hue not seen elsewhere in nature, at least around here.

Each flower is held on a long, slender pedicel. The flower’s lip, or lower petal, is divided into a spectacular brush of fringes, as if it were briefly shoved into a paper shredder. A long threadlike spur juts from the flower’s other end, providing interesting architectural punctuation.

As befits such a showy plant, its principal pollinators are beautiful as well. While I was admiring these plants recently, several spicebush and Eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies were busily working over the colony. Swallowtails do the heavy lifting of pollination for this species.

Yellow fringed orchid is listed as threatened in Ohio, and there are essentially only four populations. Some occur in the Oak Openings area west of Toledo, and reportedly a small population exists in Hocking County. A small colony maintains a tenuous foothold in Washington County.

The mother lode of this orchid occurs in Shawnee State Forest, Ohio’s largest state forest and a site unbelievably rich in biodiversity. That’s where I made the accompanying photograph on my Aug. 7 trip.

Ohio’s orchids are benchmarks of habitat health. Our scorecard is not good. Of the state’s 46 species, eight are endangered, six are threatened and eight are potentially threatened. Two of our six federally threatened plants are orchids.

Saddest of all, four of Ohio’s orchids are considered extirpated: They no longer occur in the state.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.