Small, fragile, and scattered, the islands’ native orchids can easily be overlooked in the meadows and woodlands where they abound.

The islands are actually quite rich in relatively inconspicuous “terrestrial” orchids that live on the ground, unlike showier tree-living orchids of the tropics. Island orchids send up their large, glossy leaves early in the year when the soil is still moist with rain.

Among the first to flower is the pale purple Fairy Slipper (Calypso bulbosa) with darker markings on its flowers that mimic pollen and nectar.  Many orchid species use this trick, known as “nectar deceit,” to attract pollinators without expending energy on feeding them.  Students of orchid biology have nonetheless found that nectar-bearing orchids are pollinated at a much higher rate than the deceivers.  Bumblebees tend to learn which orchid species are cheaters, and stop visiting them.

By midsummer the leaves  of many of our other native orchids are brown and shriveled, and in late summer, when pollinators are abundant, they finally flower.  Summer orchids do not rely on trickery to attract pollinators.

Instead they produce nectar to reward bees, flies, beetles and moths.  Hooded Lady’s Tresses (Spiranthes romanzoffia), whose tiny cream-colored flowers form distinct spirals or helixes on the stem, is rich in nectar that attracts native bumblebees, the workhorses of the islands’ pollinator community.

Enticing insects to transport pollen is just one way that orchids take advantage of their neighbors.  They also exploit soil fungi to feed their seedlings.  Orchids have tiny, dust-like seeds that do not contain enough food to produce a new plant.  Seedlings must rely on soil fungi that “infect” the germinating seed and are then eaten by the developing orchid.  Unlike tropical epiphytic orchids (including most orchids grown as houseplants), many terrestrial orchids never outgrow this dependency.  Some of our spring orchids are completely unable to produce their own food through photosynthesis, in fact, and feed on fungi at all life stages.  These include the Coralroots (Coralorhiza spp.), reddish-brown leafless orchids that are abundant in shaded island woodlands throughout spring and early summer.  Such orchids are classified as myco-heterotrophic or “mushroom-eating.”

Even orchids that grow green leaves and produce some of their own food by photosynthesis eat mushrooms for part of the year.

One of our common summer-flowering orchids sometimes reciprocates by using photosynthesis to feed its fungal partner.  Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera oblongifolia) is a relatively abundant woodland orchid with a network of light-colored lines on its leaves resembling snakeskin.  It is green year-round, sharing carbohydrates with soil fungi in the sunnier months—in effect, growing them–and drawing nutrients from the fungi in darker months.  Rattlesnake Plantain spreads by underground rhizomes as well as seeds, forming dense patches.  Its spikes of tiny white flowers are hardly noticed by hikers.

Two more spiky summer orchids can be found in the islands.  The Unalaska Rein Orchid (Piperia unalaschensis) is a woodland species with stems covered in tiny green flowers.  The Coast Rein orchid (Piperia elegans) is larger and grows in open meadows, often near the shore; its flowers are white.  Rein orchids emanate sweet scents at night to attract moths, but we have observed native bumblebees visiting them as well.

All of our native orchids depend on relatively undisturbed soils with rich fungal communities, as well as native bumblebees and other pollinators.

You can protect these unique wildflowers by conserving undisturbed forests and meadows and avoiding the use of pesticides and herbicides.  Never try to collect our wild orchids: they do not survive transplantation and are unsuitable as houseplants.

Discover and enjoy them in natural settings, where they are often the only splashes of color in early spring and late summer landscapes.