Bog-trotting on Vancouver Island

 On July 20, I traveled to Vancouver Island to meet a friend from New York and to go hunting with him for a very rare native orchid.  He was in Vancouver in the middle of a native-orchid trek that had already covered 5000 miles.  He had contacted Dr. Hans Roemer, a botanist and ecologist with the BC government who agreed to take us on a guided hike to see this orchid, Platanthera chorisiana, Chamisso's Orchid.

We had looked for this orchid in several locations here in Washington where it had been previously reported.  We looked twice at Lake Serene and three or four times at Lake Elizabeth, both in the Central Cascades.  At Lake Serene we discovered that the site had been destroyed by a rockslide, and at Lake Elizabeth could not find the plants which had been reported growing on a sedge mat on the far side of the lake.

The plant is actually quite small and insignificant - only about 15 cm with 3 mm flowers that do not open very far and are self-pollinating.  We did find them in several different locations, about fifteen plants in all, but had to look hard for them as they were often hidden in other vegetation.  Dr. Roemer had discovered them there years ago and had more recently obtained GPS coordinates for them.

Our excursion took us about two hours away from Victoria to the west and past the town of Sooke to a forest road that went up about 700 meters (2000 feet) above sea level to a very wet and boggy area, just the right conditions for this orchid which likes cold, high-altitude bogs.  This day a cold mist was blowing in from the sea and that in combination with wading through the bog left us cold and wet.

We found the orchid immediately in the bog next to the place we parked, several plants growing on the north side of trees in somewhat shaded and slightly drier locations than the other plants.  Growing all around were two other native orchids, the Slender Bog Orchis (Platanthera stricta) and the Bog Candle (Platanthera dilatata var. dilatata), along with numerous sedges and other bog plants.

There was evidence of bears everywhere, skunk cabbages dug up with their roots eaten and a lot of scat, some of it very fresh, but we saw no bears.  We hiked in for about two hours, through open areas full of Cotton Grass and wildflowers, squelching our way through the bog and always watching for deeper holes.  Tom, the friend from New York, actually did fall into one of the holes and got wet up to his knees.

We photographed a number of other wildflowers including the Columbia Lily (Lilium columbianum), the Swamp Gentian (Gentiana douglasiana), the Yellow Pond Lily (Nuphar polysepala), the Sticky False Asphodel (Tolfieldia glutinosa), an Aster that I did not ask about and have been unable to identify, and the ever-present Labrador Tea (Ledum groenlandicum).

At the location where Dr. Roemer had found Chamisso's Orchid previously we searched for quite some time and eventually found about a dozen plants.  I am sure there were more, but they are so small and blend in so well with the surrounding plants, that we were fortunate to find so many.  Ryan, a friend of Dr. Roemer, who accompanied us, seemed to be the best at finding them.

When we returned, we visited two other sites, a Provincial Park where Piperia elegans, the Elegant Piperia, was growing along the seaside.  Many of the plants there were deformed, probably as the result of a late frost, according to Dr. Roemer.  At his home we found that Piperia and another, Piperia transversa, the Flat-spurred Piperia, growing in the woods.

After enjoying the gracious hospitality of Dr. Roemer and his wonderful wife, Heidi, with coffee and tarts, we headed back to Victoria and parted ways, Tom to catch up with his family, and myself to catch the ferry for the mainland and home.  It was a wonderful day, made all the more wonderful by Dr. Roemer's encyclopaedic knowledge of the flora, ecology and geology of Vancouver Island.

Hurricane Ridge and Crescent Lake

Thursday, July 23, my wife and I left home about 4:30 am to catch the 7:15 ferry from Keystone on Whidbey Island to Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula.  The ferry ride is about 30 minutes and after a rather rough crossing we were in Port Townsend by 8:00 am and on the Hurricane Ridge Road in Olympic National Park, our destination, by 9:00 am.

Thereafter our travels slowed dramatically.  The fifteen mile trip up Hurricane Ridge took us 4 hours with numerous stops for pictures and one brief hike.  Most of the stops were for flower pictures, however, since the weather was cloudy early in the day though it cleared as the day progressed.

Sedum lanceolatum (taken by my wife)

Digitalis purpurea

We were on our usual lookout for native orchids and saw five of them on our way up the ridge, Piperia unalascensis, the Alaskan Piperia, Platanthera stricta, the Slender Bog Orchis, and two varieties of Platanthera dilatata, var. leuchostachys and var. dilata, the White Bog Orchis or Bog Candle, among them.  The Piperia was nearly finished blooming and I did not bother with pictures.

Platanthera dilatata var. dilatata

Very interesting were the areas where we found Platanthera dilatata var. leucostachys growing side by side with the natural hybrid of that plant and Platanthera stricta.  This hybrid is named Platanthera x estesii and has the flower shape of dilatata and the green color, though paler, of stricta..

The Parents: Platanthera dilatata var. leucostachys and Platanthera stricta

The Hybrid: Platanthera x estesii

The hybrid is often found alone with neither of the parents nearby. We were a bit confused, however, since our sources listed this as a hybrid of stricta and dilatata var. albiflora which we did not see anywhere along the road that day in or out of bloom, while it was flowering with and alongside var. leucostachys.

Some of the other floral highlights of our trip up the ridge were the Elephant's Head Lousewort, Pedicularis groenlandica (named for it's obvious resemblance to the head of that animal and blooming in very wet areas), the Nodding Onion, Allium cernuum, growing in very dry areas,and the Avalanche Lily, Erythronium montanum, one of our favorite wildflowers.

Pedicularis groenlandica

Allium cernuum

Erythronium montanum

Other flowers were the Olympic Delphinium, Delphinium glareosum, a pink form of the Common Yarrow, Achillea millefolium, the Cascades Penstemon, Penstemon serrulatus, and the Cascades Wallflower, Erysimum arenicola.

Delphinium glareosum

Achillea millefolium

Erysimum arenicola

Penstemon serrulatus

Often the flowers were growing together like a lovely garden and almost always with the Indian Paintbrush which were everywhere.  I have trouble identifying them,however, and do not know if they were all the same species or if we saw different species

My wife took pictures of this spider and I managed to get a pictures of two butterflies one which was identified by our friend, Marti as the Clodius Parnassian, after its picture was posted and the other which I've tentatively identified (with Marti's help) as the Silvery Blue.  I must get some kind of reference for butterflies in our area, since there are very few of them that I know or recognize.

Parnassius clodius

Glaucopsyche lygdamus (?)

We saw also the Common Butterwort, Pinguicula vulgaris, growing in abundance along the stream at the Klahane Ridge trailhead where we did our only hiking.  Several of the Platantheras were growing there as well, along with the Seep-spring Monkeyflower.

Pinguicula vulgaris

At the visitor's center and parking lot we refilled our water bottles, took a few pictures of a friendly deer and proceeded on down the road that continues west for a short distance.  We were looking at the end of the road for a dwarf form of Piperia unalascensis (forma olympica) that grows only in that location.

We had come looking for this plant a year ago, but had missed it in bloom.  Now we found it and spent some time taking pictures and talking to a member of the Washington Native Plant Society who had also found it (unexpectedly for him) on the ridge.

We also found on the ridge a dwarf form of the Columbia Lily (Small-flowered Tiger Lily, Lilium columbianum), that was only six inches tall - the plant grows to six feet at lower elevations.  These only ever had one flower.  We also found numerous plants of the Olympic Onion, Allium crenulatum.

Having seen what we wanted there, we went back to parking lot at the visitor's center and took the gravel road that drops off the end of the parking lot and runs southeast for about eight miles, the road to Obstruction Point.  This road is not visible from the parking lot and few visitors seem to know about it.

At the four mile point, often referred to as the Waterhole, we found a road grader blocking our way.  Talking to the driver we discovered that he had just finished opening the road the rest of the way.  He offered to move the grader, but warned us that there was a lot of snow further up and that the road was very wet from snow in places.

We went on anyway and were thankful we did.  We saw Avalanche and Glacier Lilies (Erythronium grandiflorum) by the millions (and I am not exaggerating), along with many other early-blooming wildflowers, before we came to the end of the road which found not only very muddy in places, but also very rough.

Two flower that especially caught our attention were the Dwarf Lupine (Lupinus lepidus var. lobbii) and Alpine Phacelia (Phacelia sericea var. sericea).  These were growing in alpine flower garden that included more flowers than we had time or energy to look up.

The sign at the end of the road really caught our attention.  My wife wondered if anyone had been on the receiving end of the threat expressed!  Certainly wouldn't be very pleasant.  So, lest we be caught, we hurried back and then made our way down the Hurricane Ridge road.

In Port Angeles we went west and traveled another ways to Crescent Lake and to East Beach where we hoped to find two other orchids.  One of the two we had seen the year before though it was almost finished blooming and the other we had found completely finished.

Piperia elegans

The star of the day was Epipactis gigantea, the Stream Orchid or Chatterbox, which we found growing in one large clump right beside the lake, so close, in fact, that it was difficult to get pictures without getting wet feet.

It was also very windy and we discovered why this orchid is known as the Chatterbox.  It has a movable lip, not unlike a little mouth, that in the wind made photography even more difficult.  The plants at this location were about a foot tall and the flowers about an inch and a half across.

Behind a rock we found about six plants of Piperia elegans, the Elegant Piperia.  After photographing it and a beautiful shrub with white, rose-like flowers, we returned to the car for the drive to the ferry and then home, arriving home about 11:00 pm.