Striped Coralroot

This is the third native orchid of the season to be blooming in our area (I don't think I posted the second). It's the Striped Coralroot, Corallorhiza striata var. striata. I was out today and hiked about 13 miles doing some orchid hunting in new areas, but this I found in a location in Larrabee State Park where we had seen this orchid before. The Coralroots are myco-heterotrophic, depending for their food on a complex relationship with a soil fungus. They have no chlorophyll of their own and no leaves, so all one ever find is an erect flower spike, hard to see before the blooms open and almost invisible after the blooms are finished.