The Unexpected Orchid

July 24, 2026

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

For some wildflower chases that we go on we might not know exactly what we’ll find, or whether the flowers (if we do find them) will be freshly blooming. For other wildflowers chases we go with coordinates that we’ve researched, information from friends, a fairly precise idea of where we might find what we’re looking for. 

Either way, we know that wildflowers don’t keep an exact calendar.  What we see at a certain time one year may not be blooming yet the following year or may have already gone to seed. We know, too, that the flowers we do find may not always be in prime condition for a beauty shot photo. Still, we go for the flowers whenever we can.

Last weekend we set out to find three flowers we’ve been yearning to see this year:  tesselated rattlesnake plantain, round-leaved pyrola, and tall white bog orchid. We knew the tesselated rattlesnake plantain would be past prime and that the round-leaved pyrola would already be gone to seed, but we hoped for tall white bog orchid in full flowering glory. 

Our first stop was down a narrow one-lane sandy road to a place where we’d once seen tesselated rattlesnake plantain leaves. The day was overcast, and the pine trees made a sound like rain that never reaches the ground.  No sooner were we out of the car than we saw the white spires of two northern (very) slender ladies’-tresses with their wispy spiraling flowers already going to seed. We’d seen northern slender ladies-tresses only once before, so jubilation ensued to see them again in this new-to-us location. We also found plenty of tesselated rattlesnake plantain, mostly heading to seed but still happily growing. 

Next stop:  Badoura Jack Pine Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) where we were on the hunt for round-leaved pyrola, the last of the state’s seven pyrola/shinleaf that we had yet to positively identify. We’d found the coordinates in an online search in the University of Minnesota Herbarium records, and we followed them down a sandy track to where we planned to veer off into the trees. Jack pine woodland often has an open understory, but as we peered into the woods it was clear that some serious bushwhacking would be required. We can bushwhack with the best of them, but the day had turned hot and humid, and our enthusiasm for bushwhacking was at an ebb. Besides, we had not brought along our colored plastic ties, for us a bushwhacking essential.

Perhaps we could come at the coordinates from a different direction by taking a trail we had passed earlier and then heading into the woods.  We backtracked to the trail and hiked past tesselated rattlesnake plantain, pipsissewa, and Hill’s thistle. But when we reached the place where we needed to turn into the woods again, bushes and undergrowth still blocked our way.  

Surely, we reasoned, if round-leaved pyrola grew somewhere deep in bushwhack territory, what’s to say it didn’t grow elsewhere, too, in this part of the jack pine forest? We’d scoured the trail as we hiked, but now as we retraced our steps we looked more closely in open areas alongside the trail.  Which is where, down in the pine needles and grasses, we found several stems of seed pods and the long-stalked shiny leaves of round-leaved pyrola. All seven pyrola/shinleaf seen and identified in one year–check!

Our last stop of the day was Iron Springs Bog SNA where, just at the coordinates where we’d once before seen tall white bog orchid long past prime, two tall white spires bloomed beautifully, almost as though they were waiting for Kelly to take their picture.

Our targeted searches had paid off, but we also had the thrill of an unlooked-for flower find. We might set out with maps, coordinates, helpful hints–and then, just beyond the car door, we might find two unexpected northern slender ladies’-tresses growing.

Which is one of the reasons we do what we do: for the surprise of delight.

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