Grass Pink Orchid, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms. ME

The little remnant bog at Laudholm Farm, smaller than a baseball diamond, seems to be particularly healthy as bogs go, and produces several interesting species of bog wildflowers. This is Grass Pink, one of Maine’s few native orchids. The name is peculiar. The single leaf may be grass-like but the flower, at least as it grows in Maine, is certainly not pink. It is obviously purple, which is only made more certain when it grows, in our bogs, next to another Maine orchid, the Rose Pogonia, which is, in fact, very pink (See my post on Rose Pogonia here). According to my little bit of research, the presence of Grass Pink is a good indicator that the bog’s surface and the ground water are healthy and pure. It is very sensitive to contamination. It is one of the few orchids to be “right side up”…having its fringed lip at the top when the flower is mature. All orchids start out with the lip at the top, but the stem holding the flower twists as the flower matures so that the lip is presented at the bottom. Very strange.

Grass Pink is also one the few orchids that can be grown from seed…and you can buy plants for wet sunny corners of your yard…or for inside cultivation. I far prefer to find them growing in the healthy little bog at Laudholm Farm. 🙂

Sony HX90V at 44mm equivalent. 1/320th @ ISO 80 @ f4.5. Processed in Lightroom.