Spiranthes vernalis | Wildflower Wednesday

Years ago, when our front yard was frequently flooding after heavy rain events we had a random Spiranthes orchid show up in the lawn. We hadn’t mown in that area in weeks, maybe months, due to the persistent wet weather that had left ponding in the front yard. Chris managed to clear some of the drains that go under our driveway and our neighbor’s driveway one year and the yard now dries out much better after these events.
However, about two years ago we started converting this low lying area in the yard into a more natural swale area, planting bottomland species to diversify and attract wildlife. I hadn’t seen that orchid come up again in all of those years between it first being sighted but in the spring of 2023 one appeared on the opposite side of where we’d originally seen the first one! We have nodding ladies’ tresses (Spiranthes cernua) come up in the yard almost every fall but a new species was an excellent addition!
Spiranthes vernalis is a fairly wide-spread species across the southern/eastern half of the US, from Texas to Florida, up through Kansas and as far NE as Massachusetts. Here’s hoping we’ll get to see this beauty again this spring!
2 Comments
judy
You have to know how to identify an orchid to recognize that it is one. I would never know.
Yeah, Another Blogger
Nature continuously amazes.
Hello from very cold (12 degrees F, at the moment) southeatern Pennsylvania.