These are a few more shots from my trip to the upper part of the county a few days ago.
This particular plant is Aplectrum hyemale or Putty Root Orchid. The leaves appear in the fall, stay on all winter, and disappear in late spring when it blooms. I have outlined the newly formed bloom spike in the above photo. By the middle of May, this budding spike will be about eighteen inches tall and will have more than a dozen flowers. I hope I have the chance to come back and photograph this one in bloom.
Tags: wildflowers Heritage Preserves Greenville County South Carolina rare plants Olympus E-5 ZD Zuiko 50-200mm Aplectrum hyemale Putty Root Orchid
© All Rights Reserved
Day hike to Raven Cliff Falls in upstate South Carolina.
This is the orchid that I photographed two weeks ago -- just the leaf was showing and a flower spike that was just poking out of the ground. A lot can change in just a couple of weeks...
Tags: Raven Cliff Falls South Carolina wildflowers Olympus E-5 ZD Zuiko 50-200mm Aplectrum hyemale Putty-root Orchid
© All Rights Reserved
Day hike to Raven Cliff Falls in upstate South Carolina.
This is the orchid that I photographed two weeks ago -- just the leaf was showing and a flower spike that was just poking out of the ground. A lot can change in just a couple of weeks...
Tags: Raven Cliff Falls South Carolina wildflowers Olympus E-5 ZD Zuiko 50-200mm Aplectrum hyemale Putty-root Orchid
© All Rights Reserved
Day hike to Raven Cliff Falls in upstate South Carolina.
This is the orchid that I photographed two weeks ago -- just the leaf was showing and a flower spike that was just poking out of the ground. A lot can change in just a couple of weeks...
Tags: Raven Cliff Falls South Carolina wildflowers Olympus E-5 ZD Zuiko 50-200mm Aplectrum hyemale Putty-root Orchid
© All Rights Reserved
More from the same area I visited a couple of weeks ago. This day, we found about a dozen of these orchids in bloom. That's a good population of them in about a 20-foot circle...
This is a close up to show its delicate beauty. The flower is about 1/2 to 3/4 inch across...
Tags: Aplectrum hyemale Putty root Orchid Wild Orchids wildflowers Native orchids Olympus E-5 Sigma 105mm macro Hwy. 276 Caesar's Head State Park
© All Rights Reserved