C.Rayz's photos with the keyword: Spiranthes spiralis

Brilliant stems and a new species of Orchid for me!!

Close up of flowers, almost fully open. I have no idea if the neighbour mowed them down or not after this..

They have a lovely spiraling stem of flowers, although from a distance they aren't much to look at unless you are an Orchid chaser like me..haha

Last fall I wondered over to pay my landlady, whom lives not far from us in town. I was going up her path and noticed about 20 of these little plants. She wasn't in so I had a close look at them. I was almost sure they were an Orchid of some sort. I went home and looked them up in my collins book, sure enough Lady's Tresses!! I went back the next day, wet and windy day and said....Don't mow them! I'll be back as soon as its sunny to photograph them. She's a bit elderly and frankly the word Orchid may as well have been the word weed, sure enough two days later they had all been mowed!! I was gutted, but as I was leaving a thought! Neighbours!! Sure enough her next door neighbour hadn't mowed and she had three of them in her front garden. Both ladies lived in thier house many years and neither of them remembered ever seeing them before. The neighbour allowed me to crawl around in her yard and photograph them, and was quite impressed she had wild Orchids growing in her yard. You can see here, how tiny they are, when the dandelion (to the right) is as tall or taller in some cases.