{"id":7537,"date":"2016-04-07T23:16:15","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T03:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=7537"},"modified":"2017-04-20T11:43:05","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T15:43:05","slug":"pandas-of-the-american-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=7537","title":{"rendered":"Pandas of the American forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just wanted to see one.<\/p>\n

My emotional state\u00a0this afternoon needed a strong dose of nature, so I took a hike. And I was thinking about the showy orchid.<\/p>\n

I’d only seen one before, in all nine of my Appalachian springs. The orchid\u00a0was an omen I longed for. Just one, to make me happy.<\/p>\n

I hiked the same trail as where I’d seen the showy orchid\u00a0before, and kept\u00a0my eyes peeled for its leaves. Galearis spectabilis<\/em> is a monocot, a division within the plant kingdom that’s easy to sort because it has leaves with parallel veins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Monocots are your grasses, lily, iris, and orchids. Those\u00a0leaves – straight, blade-like – make it\u00a0easy it to identify monocots.<\/p>\n

It was hard to pay attention to leaves in the forest today, though. Everywhere, wildflowers were bursting toward the sun – in great clumps –<\/p>\n

bluets,<\/p>\n

\"bluets\"<\/p>\n

violets,<\/p>\n

\"violets\"<\/p>\n

toadshade trillium,<\/p>\n

\"trillium\"<\/p>\n

chickweed.<\/p>\n

\"chickweed\"<\/p>\n

There were even a few dwarf crested iris in bloom – another monocot:<\/p>\n

\"crested<\/p>\n

The blossoms of the\u00a0Galearis spectabilis<\/em> are smaller and less spectacular than the crested iris. They are a shy, modest pink and white.<\/p>\n

\"orchids<\/p>\n

I think it’s a little strange that the common name is showy orchid, because as orchids go, it isn’t that showy.<\/p>\n

Environmentalists call orchids “pandas of the plant world,” says\u00a0\u00a0Smithsonian botanist Dr. Melissa McCormick<\/a>,<\/p>\n

because they\u2019re beautiful, well-liked, interesting, and can be used as a bellwether for the health of an ecosystem. So, if you see orchids starting to disappear, they\u2019re probably just the first of many species that will vanish.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An indicator species, in other words.<\/p>\n

Orchids need certain fungi to be present in the soil and so they won’t grow just anywhere. McCormick\u00a0says,<\/p>\n

An ecosystem that is not healthy, that doesn\u2019t have the full complement of fungal species that it normally would\u2014maybe it has been invaded by other species or the soil has been turned up\u2014will not support orchids very well. It is true that many of our native orchids are declining, some precipitously.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So my hunt for the showy orchid was not only\u00a0to add it to my naturalist notebook. The orchid is\u00a0a sign of health.<\/p>\n

For both me and the forest.<\/p>\n

Let me see just one more.<\/p>\n

There. I spotted a monocot leaf. And then another one. Small.<\/p>\n

Then three little blossoms, newly born.<\/p>\n

\"baby<\/p>\n

Suddenly I saw the whole patch, all at once, more than a dozen showy orchid plants. A big patch of them.<\/p>\n

\"orchids<\/p>\n

I got on my knees in the dirt, and looked at every single one up close. I breathed deeply and looked at the forest all around me.<\/p>\n

Healthy.<\/p>\n

Today’s penny is a 2014, the year when I first saw a Galearis spectabilis<\/em>\u00a0in the wild.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just wanted to see one. My emotional state\u00a0this afternoon needed a strong dose of nature, so I took a hike. And I was thinking about the showy orchid. I’d only seen one before, in all nine of my Appalachian springs. The orchid\u00a0was an omen I longed for. Just one, to make me happy. I … read more Pandas of the American forest<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[321],"tags":[36,82,870,498,500,136,869,497,868,867,504],"class_list":["post-7537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tress","tag-36","tag-beauty","tag-ecosystem","tag-flower","tag-forest","tag-health","tag-monocot","tag-orchid","tag-panda","tag-plant","tag-recovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7537"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7549,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7537\/revisions\/7549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}