Green Swamp adventure for Fringed Orchids — 2020-08-15

I’m getting too old for this, I think… The most recent post showing the images I made on the first day of my two-day adventure has been deleted by mistake, and there is no way to recover it. My bad. For those of you who were quick enough to view it — great! For the others of you who missed it — not so great. However, maybe this post will make up for it in some small way.

The previous afternoon, I made my way to Little River, South Carolina where I spent the night in preparation for this day’s adventure. I was to meet my good friend and excellent photographer, Kelvin Taylor (KT) and two new friends who I had met on FaceBook, John Saltiel and Rob Patterson. John was coming down from Washington, DC, and Rob is a native of nearby, New Bern, North Carolina. It would be a fun day.

KT and I had decided to meet at a roadside bog west of The Green Swamp Preserve to look for Platanthera conspicua or Southern White Fringed orchids. A few years ago, the orchids’ presence at this spot was pointed out to us by another good friend and photographer, Skip Pudney, who now lives in Texas. Last year, the area had been mowed just as the orchids were coming into bloom, but as you will see, that didn’t seem to make a significant dent in this year’s bloom. Here is what this orchid species looks like:

Southern White Fringed orchids

Here is another one:

I awoke quite early on Saturday morning, not being able to sleep because of the expectation of seeing drifts of Southern White Fringed orchids along the roadside. Yep, I still get excited about those wildflowers! After rushing through a meager continental breakfast at my motel, I hurriedly packed my camera gear in my truck and headed north toward Brunswick County. I arrived about 10 minutes before our scheduled meeting time, gathered my gear and headed off down the road toward the bog.

Even from a distance, I could see dots of bright white towering above the grasses and small shrubby plants:

Nice, eh?

I made my way down into the bog (I was wearing my rubber boots, for sure), and I began selecting specimens to photograph. I had been there no more than 5 minutes when I saw KT park his car next to mine. It was going to be a great day!

Here is a smattering of the dozens of images I took at this site. I’m showing you a respectable sample of the orchids that were in bloom, because there were many that were still in bud. They will be good for another week to 10 days, I’m thinking:

Believe me, selecting specimens to photograph was not easy, because everywhere I turned, there were so many to see! Here are a couple of wide angle shots to give you an idea of what we experienced:

Not only did we find these orchids, but there were also some very large and colorful Dionaea muscipula or Venus’ Fly-trap plants. Just to remind you, this part of North Carolina is ground zero for this native carnivorous plant species. Reminder: it is a felony to remove these plants from property that you do not own. Some of the traps measured more than 2 inches (5 cm) across. Here are a few images of some of those plants we saw:

Keeping with the carnivorous plant theme, we also found dozens of Drosera intermedia or Spoon-leaf Sundew plants inundated in some tractor tracks from last year’s mowing:

A short time after KT had arrived, I saw John and Rob park their vehicles, and they soon joined us. I lost track of how much time we spent there. I remembered saying that we could probably spend the whole day in this spot. Before we left, KT and I located a large population made up of several colonies of a rare and disjunct plant called Lophiola aurea or Goldencrest. I believe there are only a couple of other occurrences of this species in North Carolina. The nearest populations are in southern Georgia and southern Delaware. Here is an example of the fuzzy silver plant that was already in seed. I am also providing a photo I took a couple of years ago in late May, when the plant was in flower:

We decided it was time to head to the Green Swamp Preserve, less than an hour away.

We finally arrived, gathered our gear, and headed out into the large savannah that is known as Big Island Savannah. It was not a difficult hike, but we did have to travel through large ferns and other shrubby plants, all growing on quite uneven terrain. We even had to cross a water filled ditch or two before arriving at the grassy savannah.

KT and I had been there many times, so we knew where to go to look for the orchids. The sky was darkening considerably in the southeast, so we figured our time here was limited. We first went to the area where the Gymnadeniopsis integra or Yellow Fringeless orchids should be growing. We were correct! There were many dozens of them scattered in the tall savannah grasses. It was rather difficult to see them until you arrived within a few feet of the plants, especially because they were shorter than the savannah grasses. But the bright yellow spires glowed in the sunlight. Here are some of the best of the hundreds we found:

This particular species is rather rare in the Carolinas, but where it is found, it is locally abundant although widely scattered in this savannah.

While we were searching for the Yellow Fringeless orchids, we kept seeing a Fringed orchid species here and there. This was Platanthera ciliaris or Yellow Fringed orchid. Both KT and I knew where to go to find the best of the Yellow Fringed orchids on Big Island Savannah, so we headed in that direction hoping that they would be in good shape. We made our way to that section of the savannah, and we began to see some nice specimens of this orchid. Here are some of the many images we took:

Along the edge of the savannah is an area called the pocosin. It is composed of dense, impenetrable shrubs, and does not burn readily when the prescribed fires are set in the savannah. One of the shrubs that can be found in the pocosin is Gordonia lasianthus or Loblolly Bay. No, this not the plant from which come the Bay leaves you use in your cooking. But, it does have a delicious smelling flower:

One other plant we saw that I really like is Rhexia petiolata or Fringed Meadowbeauty — only one of a dozen species of Meadowbeauty that bloom during the year in the savannah.

We finally were driven from the savannah back to our vehicles by the thunderstorm that rolled in on us. By this time, I was pretty much tuckered out, having spent 7 hours slogging around in the Francis Marion National Forest the day before. The heat and humidity got to me. It was then I decided to cut the day short and head back on my 5-hour drive home. I hated to miss out on any further field trip adventure the others may make, but it was time to go.

We said out goodbyes and decided to keep in touch for future expeditions in this area. What a wonderful time spent with friends — old and new — and spent seeing such wonderful wildflowers in their native habitat. If this area had not been preserved decades ago, there would probably be housing developments or industrial parks in the middle of these grassy savannahs, just too sad to consider…

I hope you enjoyed this wildflower post. Again, I apologize for deleting the previous one.

Until next time…

–Jim