Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve

Orchid ~ More Than a Color

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Rose Pogonia ~ Pogonia ophioglossoides

Life is filled with surprises, and learning that Texas is populated with wild orchids certainly surprised me. I’d always associated orchids with jungles, or at least with the tropics, but Texas is home to fifty-four species of terrestrial orchids: plants that grow in soil rather than on trees, rocks, or other plants.

A majority of Texas orchids — thirty-six species– grow in the bogs and forests of east Texas. In past years, I’ve found examples of five. This past Sunday, while visiting the Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve, I added one more beauty to my list: the rose pogonia.  

Slender, usually with only one flower and a single leaf midway up its stem, rose pogonia often is found in pitcher plant bogs, and that’s where I found mine. Several of the orchids had grown up among the pitcher plants, but photographing them would have been impossible without damaging other plants or disturbing the mossy ground.

As luck would have it, one orchid was growing where it could be somewhat isolated from the cluttered background, although there was no way to move around seeking different perspectives or a sharper focus. No matter. One photo is better than none, and now I’ll know what I’m looking at if I come across them again.

Joe and Ann Liggio’s book Wild Orchids of Texas notes that rose pogonia sometimes is confused with the grass pink orchid, but they bloom at different times; rose pogonias fade away just as grass pinks begin to arrive. On Sunday, my discovery of one blooming grass pink suggests that I’d arrived at just the right time to witness the transition. Next year, I’ll search earlier in the year for the rose pogonia; now, I’m looking forward to a profusion of the beautiful grass pinks.

Grass Pink ~ Calopogon tuberosus

Robert Frost’s poem “Rose Pogonia” pays tribute to an orchid-filled meadow; the Watson Preserve endures as one answer to his prayer.

We raised a simple prayer
Before we left the spot,
That in the general mowing
That place might be forgot;
Or if not all is favoured
Obtain such grace of hours,
That none should mow the grass there
While so confused with flowers.

 

Comments always are welcome.

The Slow March of the Mushrooms

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Slightly shrunken, nondescript, this tiny mushroom faded into near-obscurity above the forest floor. Still, its presence suggested others might have taken hold, and so it was. Creeping through the mixture of damp, decaying needles and leaves, my eyes caught by unexpected bursts of color, I began to grasp the truth of Sylvia Plath’s delicate poem titled “Mushrooms.”

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.
Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.
Waxcap (Hygrocybe spp.)
Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,
Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,
Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes.
Waxcap (Hygrocybe spp.)
We diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!
We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,
Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.

As if to prove Plath’s point, this Skullcap Dapperling (Leucocoprinus brebissonii), had emerged next to a trail. Described by Louis-Luc Godey as Lepiota brebissonii in 1874, it was moved to Leucocoprinus by Marcel Locquin in 1943. Long considered a European species, it’s recently been identified in the Pacific Northwest, often occurring in large groups on forest litter.

Bemused by the Skullcap’s seemingly overnight appearance in second-growth forests around Puget Sound, the University of Washington’s Burke Herbarium has questioned how such an abundant species could have made the move unnoticed, or been overlooked in the past.

Whatever the answer, it’s still on the move, having reached the Sam Houston National Forest and the Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve. Here in Texas, it most certainly has its foot in the door.

 

Comments always are welcome.

A Plant for All Seasons

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Inland Sea oats in August ~ Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve

The plant variously known as inland sea oats, inland wood oats, and Indian wood oats may have received those common names to help distinguish it from the ‘sea oats’ (Uniola paniculata) which grow in sandy coastal areas. 

Inland sea oats (Chasmanthium latifolium) aren’t found anywhere near the ocean. A clump-forming, upright grass, the plant grows along the rocky slopes of streams and rivers, in woodland areas, and in flood plains. A shade and drought tolerant ornamental grass that also can thrive in full sunlight, it’s often used for erosion control, and is prized by wildlife both for cover and for food.

Easily recognized because of its flat, drooping seed heads and arching stems, the plant is native to the eastern United States from Pennsylvania to Florida, and thrives as far west as Wisconsin and Texas. While it can become a little tatty at the very end of its growing cycle, it soon re-emerges, ready to delight the eye.

Inland Sea oats in December ~ Lost Maples State Natural Area

 

Comments always are welcome.

My Love is Like a Red, Red…

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Milkweed!  Red milkweed, that is: Asclepias rubra. Despite its common name, the flowers usually are shades of pink, giving rise to a second common name: tall pink bog milkweed. On a recent visit to the Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve, most plants appeared pink rather than red, but these isolated examples of deeply saturated color seemed to meet Singhurst and Hutchins’s description of “dull red.”

Red Milkweed grows in pitcher plant bogs, seeps, and wet pine savannas from New Jersey south to Florida and west to Texas. As much as four feet tall, its terminal umbels are easily spotted above its companion plants.

Red milkweed ~ Asclepias rubra
Tall pink bog milkweed ~ also Asclepias rubra

Like other milkweed species, A. rubra already has been busy forming its attractive follicles, or seed pods. This sleek, smooth example, nearly four inches long, may have riped and released its seeds since my visit.

Comments always are welcome.