National Park Service Centennial

I am alive! Between being incredibly busy and having a total lack of motivation to write, I haven't posted anything in nearly 2 months. But here I am, and for a special day. Today, August 25, 2016, is the 100th birthday for the National Park Service! I just wanted to throw together a few photos highlighting the national parks I've been to, along with some suggestions of things to do at those parks and what have you. So, here we go!

Grand Canyon National Park, one of the quintessential national parks in the United States.

The National Park Service was established on August 25, 1916, by the National Park Service Organic Act as passed by Congress and then-president Woodrow Wilson. Actual national parks are older than 1916, however, with Yellowstone National Park (established in 1872) being the first national park in the United States. Several other national parks were then created, but each of the parks were individually managed. As the parks grew in number, Congress decided to establish an agency that would collectively oversee the parks, instead of leaving them to be individually managed.

The National Park Service doesn't only manage and oversee national parks; the agency also manages most national monuments, such as White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, which I've covered previously. In addition to National Monuments and National Parks, the agency manages several other types of locations such as National Historic Sites, National Battlefield Parks, National Parkways, National Recreation Areas, National Seashores, and other such properties.

As of now, I've personally visited 11 (of the 59) national parks and many other locations managed by the NPS. They all have their incredible beauties and differences, but I've never been to a single national park that left me underwhelmed. My personal favorite, so far at least, has been Petrified Forest National Park (which I've covered at this link) in Arizona. It was the first park I was able to visit west of the Mississippi River, and it was the first place that I really got a taste of "The American West."

Another personal favorite is Arches National Park. The juxtaposition between the beautifully sculpted red sandstone with the soaring La Sal Mountains in the background just makes for a mesmerizing place.

Zion Canyon in Zion National Park, Utah, as seen from atop Angels Landing.

This summer, while coming home from a field technician job in Southeast Arizona, I decided to take a 10 day road trip back to Ohio. I meandered up through Arizona, through southern Utah, through Colorado, and then back to Ohio via I-70. My plan was to hit as many national parks and other awesome natural areas as best I could for as cheaply as I could. In total I visited 5 national parks, and an assortment of national forests and other parks.

The Narrows Hike (Left), Angels Landing Hike (Right)

The two most memorable hikes from my roadtrip both came from Zion National Park in southwestern Utah. I did both the two most famous hikes at Zion: The Narrows and Angels Landing. The Narrows is a deep and narrow canyon which one can hike through. There is no "trail," and you just hike through the Virgin River. I opted to do 4 miles upstream and then 4 miles back downstream. The Angels Landing hike is a grueling climb up to the top of Angels Landing, a rock formation which rises 1,488 feet above the floor of Zion Canyon. The Angels Landing hike is infamous for the last 500 vertical feet in which you have to scramble up a steep sandstone face with over 1,000 foot drops on either side of the trail (which is sometimes only 2 or 3 feet wide). I'll hopefully be writing a post or two more on Zion in the near future!

Many National Parks, especially ones like Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite, are known for being really busy, especially during the summer months. People visit these parks in droves because they are something special, but not every place the NPS manages is crowded and overflowing with people. In fact, if you're willing to sacrifice some comforts, you can easily escape the crowds. For example, try visiting busier parks in the winter, when attendance is drastically down. Another thing you can do is simply go off the beaten path. Take the photo above. This double arch is called Grosvenor Arch. It's in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. Grand Staircase-Escalante NM is a gigantic plot of land that lies between Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, and Canyonlands National Parks. It's an easy drive from any of those, yet has only a fraction of the visitors. This is mainly because it's wild. In this park you oftentimes have to take crazy dirt roads for miles to get to places without bathrooms or water or what have you. If you're comfortable with that and plan for the seclusion, you can often find yourself totally alone. I visited Grosvenor Arch over the summer, and there were about 5 people at the trailhead. To get there, you had to drive 20 miles one way down a dirt-rock-sand road, and even cross a creek. Not many people are willing to do that, and the touristy crowds disappear for those who are willing to.

Alpine tundra and spruce forest as seen from the Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park.

But it's still nice to be a tourist at a busy park. When I traveled to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, I visited the park on a Sunday afternoon. The crowds were insane, and the traffic was bumper to bumper, but the amazing views like the one above made it all worth it.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park in the Autumn.

Ohio even has its own national park! Although the vast majority of national parks are out west, Ohio is home to Cuyahoga Valley National Park, near Cleveland. Sadly, I've never properly explored the park, but many of those who live in the Cleveland area are very familiar with it! I've only visited for research, but hopefully sometime soon I can visit it for hiking!

The Great Smoky Mountains as seen from the Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina.

The national parks belong to you and I. They were created to protect amazing natural features for future generations to enjoy and visit. Sadly, there are many threats to the future of these treasures. Climate change is affecting all the aspects of all the national parks, from the wildlife to the plants to even the namesake features (For example, Glacier National Park is expected to lose all the namesake glaciers by 2050). On top of that, some politicians are currently trying to open up the national parks to activities such as mining and other horribly detrimental activities. And then there's the threat of invasive species, tourists damaging natural features while visiting, and a whole slew of other threats. These national parks should be protected for our children, their children, their children's children, and on and on and on. We have to take steps to ensure these lands are conserved and protected, because once they're gone, they're gone. It is our duty to do so.

Have you been to a national park? If so, which one is your favorite? Leave a comment below!

White Sands National Monument

Over a month ago I was making the trip from Ohio to southeastern Arizona for a field technician job. Along the way I passed right by White Sands National Monument in southern New Mexico. I knew visiting White Sands was an opportunity I couldn't pass up, so I took the exit and ventured into the park.

White Sands National Monument is a protected area of land over 143,000 acres in size. The main point of interest is the sprawling white sand dunes which stretch on for miles and miles. Located in south-central New Mexico, White Sands National Monument attracts nearly 600,000 visitors a year. The area was designated a national monument back in 1933 by then-president Herbert Hoover. Many people (including myself) will often erroneously refer to White Sands as a national park, but national monuments in the US are a bit different from national parks. National parks in the US essentially protect natural scenic areas which are of national or international significance. National monuments, on the other hand, aim to preserve a single significant feature (more or less), and this feature can be culturally, historically, or naturally significant. There's also some bureaucratic differences; Congress will establish new national parks, while the president will proclaim national monuments.

How exactly did these sand dunes form? First, as always, you have to look at the greater geologic setting. White Sands sits in the Tularosa Basin (outlined in blue above). This entire area of New Mexico belongs to the basin and range province of the US. As the name suggests, the basin and range province is made up of basins and (mountain) ranges. These basins and ranges formed (in short) due to extensional tectonic forces millions of years ago. As the land was pulled apart, large faults formed that broke the land into blocks. Some of these blocks slid upward and became mountain ranges. Other blocks slid downward and became basins. Erosion than began acting on the new mountains, and sediment began to flow down the slopes before being deposited in the low-lying basins. This resulted in the basins becoming extensive flat plains that we now see in between the various mountain ranges in this geologic region. In this specific area, White Sands sits in the Tularosa Basin, surrounded on either side by the San Andres Mountains and the Sacramento Mountains.

Now that we've set the scene, let's dive into the actual geologic history of the sand dunes. About 280 million years ago (the Permian Period) what is now the southwest US was covered in a shallow sea. This shallow sea deposited various layers of sediment which then became the bedrock of the area presently. Some of these layers were made up of gypsum, or calcium sulfate dihydrate. When the geologic forces creating the basins and ranges of the area occurred, sections of these gypsum layers were thrust upward with the forming mountains and subsequently became exposed. If you look at the photo above, you can see the whitish layers of gypsum in the mountains. Gypsum dissolves in water and is therefore easily erodible. As a result, rainwater and wind has been slowly eroding these gypsum layers. Rainwater with the dissolved gypsum would run down the mountains and into the basin below. Normally it would be carried to the ocean, but the water carried into the Tularosa Basin is contained and has no way out. This closed-off factor is very crucial to the formation of the sand dunes.

During the Wisconsin Glacial Period about 24,000 to 12,000 years ago, the southwest was a much wetter place. Gypsum-rich rainwater would run into the Tularosa Basin and into a large lake called Lake Otero. This lake was at the base of the San Andres Mountains. As the glacial period ended, the climate in this region became drier and drier. Lake Otero began to dry up, and the dissolved gypsum precipitated out and was deposited in the form of selenite crystals along the now-dry lake bed.

Around 10,000 years ago, strong prevailing winds began blowing from the southwest to the northeast. These winds began to erode the deposited selenite in the old lake bed, forming white gypsum sand. This sand was then picked up by the wind and blown inches by inches toward the northeast. As this happened, the sand began building up. Over the course of the next several thousand years, the sand accumulated into massive sand dunes. These sand dunes are still forming today. During instances of heavy rain, rainwater dissolves more gypsum in the San Andres Mountains. This rainwater runs into an ephemeral lake (called a playa) known as Lake Lucero, which is a smaller lake bed that sits in the old site of Lake Otero. This water will evaporate, leaving behind gypsum deposits, and the wind will create more gypsum sand. Although this process is occurring every year, the bulk of the dune formation occurred due to erosion of the Lake Otero deposits.

These beautiful white sand dunes are an ever-changing feature of the Tularosa Basin. Wind is constantly changing the shapes of the dunes, and they slowly morph and move over the basin. It's a very dynamic park, and well worth the visit. When I visited, the wind was really blowing. You could see the tiny sand grains moving over the tops of the dunes. When you're sitting on top of a dune, you can really feel the lively nature of the system.

Thanks for reading!

Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher

About a week ago I made the journey from Ohio to southeastern Arizona for a field technician job. Along the way I visited Mohawk Park in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mohawk Park is a giant of a city park, and it is filled with a wide variety of habitats including deciduous forest, prairie, swamp, lake, and more. I had a few hours to kill there, so I decided to go birding (of course!). Now eastern Oklahoma isn't too different from Ohio when it comes to bird diversity in early May, but there are a few birds you can find there that you can't find in Ohio...

One of these birds is the Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher, a phenomenal and hard-to-ignore species. I've wanted to see a Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher for years now, but their range in the United States is limited to mainly Oklahoma and Texas, with the range also extending into parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas. Very rarely one will turn up in Ohio (as one famously did in 2014), but for an Ohioan to realistically see one, they must travel west. To my surprise (and delight), the Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher was a dime a dozen in Oklahoma. Also to my delight was their apparent tameness, as one could easily get close for photos!

The Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher gets its name from its incredibly long tail feathers, which take on a forked "V" shape when in flight (and slightly so when sitting). Although the individual above has some pretty old (and pretty rough-looking) tail feathers, you can see the long size. Females will have a tad bit shorter tails (about 30% shorter), but are still long. As with most exaggerated traits, one would think that the long tail is a sexually-selected trait, such as the giant tail of the Peacock; however, since the females also have a long tail, it does not actually appear to be a sexually-selected trait. If it was sexually-selected, only one of the sexes would (in theory) have the exaggerated tail. Why the long tail then? Although there are hypotheses for why, it is still a debated subject. 

The Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher is a bird of open country with scattered trees. Oftentimes they can be seen perched on electrical wires when driving through Oklahoma. As their name implies, they forage primarily by a method called flycatching, where an individual will sit upon a perch (like in the photo above), look for an insect flying by, and upon seeing one will quickly fly out, catch it, and then return to the perch. Birds which flycatch are fun to watch, and even more so when they're such an awesome species like the Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher!

My internet at the field station I am staying at is very limited, so blog posts will be sadly be sporadic. However, keep on the lookout for more western-themed posts! Thanks for reading!

Sora

The past two weeks have been the peak of rail migration here in Ohio. I saw report after report, photo after photo, of Virginia Rails and Soras from around the state posted on various Facebook groups such as Birding Ohio. I absolutely adore rails; an infamous Black Rail which showed up outside of my hometown in 2008 was responsible for converting me from a birdwatcher to a birder. And of course, with all the reports I was seeing this year, I just had to go out and try to find a few rails myself. I traveled to a few good locations, but came up empty each time. And then I stopped by a local city park in Circleville, Ohio...

The typical view of a Sora in dense reeds.

The Mary Virginia Crites Hannan Park (what a name) lies on the edge of Circleville in Pickaway County. It's half forest and half prairie. In the middle of the prairie section is a small pond surrounded by reeds and cattails. I stopped by to do some birding in the forest, and I checked the pond first to see if there were any ducks hanging out. All of the sudden I heard the distinctive whinny call of a Sora! After searching the known haunts of Soras and Virginia Rails in Pickaway County, and coming up empty handed each time, there was a Sora hanging out right in a heavily-traveled park! And then I heard another whinny; there was more than one! I didn't have my camera on me, so I decided to head back out the next day to try and get some photos. After arriving, I carefully walked the edge of the pond, searching for any movement among the reeds. After a few moments, I caught a glimpse of something moving. A Sora was walking through the reeds, heading away from me.

I positioned myself in a location that was a bit more open. I took out my phone and played a call of a Sora in an attempt to draw one a bit closer. To my surprise one came running at me! He looked at me, apparently decided I wasn't a threat, and then began foraging only a few feet away from me. My camera shutter flying, and my hands shaking from excitement, I took photo after photo.

He moved into the open a few times and allowed me to take photos I never thought I would get to take. The Sora is a common species of rail. Rails are birds in the family Rallidae. Members of Rallidae are duck-size-and-smaller birds which are mostly tied to wetlands, especially here in the US. The Sora is actually not as closely related to the Virginia and King Rails as one might expect, but is instead more closely related to the Moorhens (Gallinules) and Coots. The most common rail in Ohio is by far the familiar American Coot, but the Sora takes second place. The issue with most rails (American Coot aside) is that they are incredibly secretive and shy birds, which means they often escape notice even though they move through Ohio in pretty good numbers. Soras are a bit more outgoing and can often be seen by the patient observer. Virginia Rails are a bit more secretive and harder to see, but by far the hardest rails to lay eyes on are the Black and Yellow Rails. Black Rails and Yellow Rails are scarcely the size of a sparrow, and trying to see one of those moving through 5 foot tall reeds is a bit of a challenge. Those two species are incredibly rare here in Ohio, but they are found every several years. No doubt many more migrate through each year than are found. But back to the Sora!

The Sora breeds across much of the northern half of the US, including most of Ohio aside from the southern portion of the state. They breed in freshwater marshes, including places here in Ohio such as Calamus Swamp, Battelle-Darby Creek, and the marshes of Lake Erie. They overwinter in the marshes of the southern coastal US, Central America, and the extreme northern parts of South America. Like all rails, the Sora has extremely large feet that are adapted to walking over bits of broken reeds as you can see in the photo above. The larger surface area of their feet makes it easier to stay above the water without sinking in, but if it comes to it they are pretty good swimmers as well. Soras prefer shallow water that is less than 20 inches deep, so their large feet really compliment their habitat preference.

The Sora spends most of its time moving stealthily among dense cattails and other reedy wetland plants, foraging on a range of food types including snails, spiders, insects, and assorted plant material (mostly seeds). The Sora is a migratory species, and they migrate through Ohio from April to May and again from August to mid October. Those which nest in Ohio start as early as late April/early May. I really hope that the individuals I saw and heard are trying to nest in the park. The pond and edge wetland are 2.5 acres (1 hectare) in size, and this seems to be the lower limit in area that they will nest in. Soras face the threat of habitat destruction (and what species doesn't anymore?) as acre after acre of wetland habitat is destroyed in the US. The pond these Soras were hanging out in was actually recently constructed as part of a habitat restoration project (it had been an agricultural field for decades). Hopefully these, or future, Soras take advantage of this new wetland. 

I have to admit, I was shaking from adrenaline as I was taking these photos. As I mentioned before, I LOVE rails, and I never thought I would have one foraging essentially at my feet, let alone getting a chance to photograph one like this. The Mary Virginia Crites Hannan Park is a special place. Not only are there Soras and Wilson's Snipes hanging out in the wetland during some parts of the year, but the seriously declining Henslow's Sparrow, along with the more common Savannah Sparrow, breeds in the surrounding restored prairie. The other half of the park, a wet forest, offers a stopover location for warblers and other migrant songbirds within the sea of corn and soybean fields which surround it. And apparently (as I just saw my first one at this location after years of birding the patch), a Red-Headed Woodpecker, a species in decline here in Ohio, is setting up shop in the park! It's a lovely park to bird at, and I can't wait to see what other interesting species show up!

Thanks for reading!

Six Orchids from Southern Ohio

Last weekend I had the pleasure of being one of the trip leaders for the Ohio Ornithological Society's "Warblers and Wildflowers" event. This is an annual weekend foray that takes places in the rolling hills of Shawnee State Forest and nearby areas. My group spent Saturday morning in Shawnee SF, and the rest of the day birding around next door Adams County. I ended up observing 66 species of birds on Saturday, a new daily high! Sunday was a free-for-all, and I was lucky enough to be able to tag along with two amazing botanists, Andrew Gibson (blogger at The Buckeye Botanist) and Tanner Morris (you can view Tanner's photography page right here), as they ventured through some select sites in Scioto and Adams Counties. We saw a lot of amazing plants, but this post is over the orchids we saw in bloom.

First, some background on orchids. Although the word "orchid" conjures up images of tropical forests, Ohio does indeed have an array of native orchids. There are 46 species of native orchid (family Orchidaceae) which have been recorded in Ohio. Of these 46, 4 are sadly extirpated (locally extinct in Ohio). Of the remaining 42, 22 are state listed as either potentially threatened, threatened, or endangered (and 2 of those 22 are also federally listed). The vast majority of these orchids require a narrow set of ecological characteristics to live, with some being much more picky than others. This makes orchids generally uncommon and oftentimes hard to find in Ohio, depending on the species. (For a complete checklist of Ohio orchid species and hybrids, check out this link)

The orchid blitz was mainly Sunday, but it began Saturday night. We took a short drive to one of the many gravel roads that criss-cross the massive expanse that is Shawnee State Forest. Just off the side of the road were these two unassuming flowers. This is Large Whorled Pogonia, Isotria verticillata. Large Whorled Pogonia is an orchid of the forest. More specifically, this species prefers acidic soils of upland forests and the likes. It's relatively widespread across the Allegheny Plateau region of eastern Ohio, but it's an easily missed flower. 

Large Whorled Pogonia in bloom.

Many of the orchids in Ohio are not overly showy, and the Large Whorled Pogonia falls into that category. It would be an incredibly easy flower to miss if you weren't looking. Although the Large Whorled Pogonia is relatively common (albeit hard to see) in eastern Ohio, it's close cousin the Small Whorled Pogonia, Isotria medeoloides, is a whole other story. The Small Whorled Pogonia is a federally listed plant, and it is incredibly rare in Ohio. In fact, it's only been recorded in 2 counties, and both of those have been in single locations. The first individual was recorded in Shawnee State Forest back in 1985, only a few miles from where the photo above was taken. It has since not been relocated. The second record was from a location in Hocking County in 1998, where a single fruiting individual and several vegetative stems were discovered. Sadly those individuals haven't been seen in several years, but this species is known to lie dormant. There is a chance that it will once again sprout forth. There is also a chance the Small Whorled Pogonia is out there somewhere else in Ohio, hiding among other plants, either overlooked or in places where no botantically-minded person has ventured...

On Sunday we once again ventured down a lonely road in Shawnee State Forest. Ovenbirds, Worm-Eating Warblers, and Wood Thrushes greeted us with song as we arrived at the first location. However, so did rain. Cue me awkwardly trying to protect my not-weather-sealed camera from the rain while still trying to take photos. Luckily these Pink Lady's Slippers, Cypripedium acaule, did not pay a lick of attention to the rain. Pink Lady's Slipper is a species of orchid in the Cypripedium genus, whose members are called the "lady's slippers" due to the distinctive shape of their flower.

The Pink Lady's Slipper is one of the more common of the lady slipper's here in Ohio. The Yellow Lady's Slipper, which we will get to in a bit, has been recorded in more counties than the Pink, but the populations are much more scattered and tend to be not as abundant in individuals. The Pink Lady's Slipper can be found in the northeastern part of Ohio (the glaciated Allegheny Plateau) and a few scattered counties in the southeastern half of the state. They prefer dryer, acidic oak and pine forests, such as the ridgetops of Shawnee SF with a sandstone bedrock.

Just a few dozen feet away was a very interesting Pink Lady's Slipper that wasn't so pink. This is a white variation individual of the Pink Lady's Slipper. It's a pretty rare phenotype for this species, and it was a pleasure to see. This isn't the first white-variant flower I've seen before; a few years ago I found a white-variant individual of Scaly Blazingstar. You can see a photo of that individual at this link.

Close by to the Pink Lady's Slippers were a few individuals of the Large Yellow Lady's Slippers. The taxonomic naming seems to be a bit unsure. There are three thoughts. First, most would call this Cypripedium parviflorum, specifically Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens. Others would call this Cypripedium pubescens. A few would call this Cypripedium calceolus var. pubescens. This confusion all boils down to the never-ending conflict of what defines a species. In Europe there is Cypripedium calceolus, the Yellow Lady's Slipper. Originally many considered the yellow lady's slippers in North America to be a subspecies of the European C. calceolus. As genetic work was done, they found this probably wasn't the case, and the American ones were diverged enough to be considered their own species.

This led to the next issue; within North America there are 4 varieties (in essence the botanical version of a subspecies) recognized. Many botanists then decided to call the overall species Cypripedium parviflorum, and then designate the varieties as var. exiliens (found in Alaska), var. makasin (found in the northern part of the range), var. parviflorum (found in the southern part of the range), and var. pubescens (found throughout the range). These varieties all have different ranges, different habitat preferences, and different morphologies, and one could argue that these are different species, depending on what your idea of a species is (as there are a few dozen concepts). In fact, this resulted in some deciding to elevate Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens to its own species, Cypripedium pubescens. Yet at the same time, all of the American "varieties" are extremely closely related when it comes to their genetics. This leads to a big question: How much does genetics play a role in designating what a species is, and how much does the ecology of the various populations play a role?

Regardless how they are classified, they are an extremely awesome plant. The delicate yellow flower stands in stark contrast among the greens and browns of the understory. They are found across Ohio in about half the counties, but they aren't really "common" here, although they can be locally abundant in good areas. They prefer wetter areas than the Pink Lady's Slippers, and often can be found on forested hillsides.

Stepping away from the lady's slippers for a bit, let's go to this tiny plant. This is Showy Orchis, Galearis spectabilis. And yes, I spelled the common name correctly. It's not Showy Orchid, but Showy Orchis, as strange as that might seem. The name "Orchis" comes from the old genus this species was placed in, which was Orchis. However, they have since been removed and placed in the new genus Galearis, but the common name of Showy Orchis remains. Showy Orchis can essentially be found throughout the state. It prefers moderately moist (AKA mesic) forested habitats. Such habitats include the bottoms of ravines in southern Ohio. They are only a few inches tall and could be easily missed by the unobservant hiker, but a careful observer might catch the tiny white and purple flowers.

After awhile we left Scioto County and headed to next-door Adams County, which happens to be my favorite county in Ohio. I also absolutely love parasitic plants, and I was delighted when we stopped by an unassuming roadside with a population of Spring Coralroot, Corallorhiza wisteriana, in bloom. I've covered the related Crested Coralroot (you can read the post here), and it was great to see another species. Spring Coralroot is listed as a Potentially Threatened Species here in Ohio. They are a parasitic species which feeds off nutrients acquired by underground mycorrhizal fungi that is present throughout the soil. In fact, these plants spend most of their life underground, and they only send up a flower every so often when conditions are right. This lifestyle is also leading to their decline. Disturbances to the soil will often result in the destruction of mycorrhizal fungi in the affected area. Of course, if the food source for the Spring Coralroot is destroyed, the Spring Coralroot won't be able to feed and will subsequently starve.

The star of the day was the rare, state-endangered White Lady's Slipper, Cypripedium candidum. This is not just rare in Ohio; this species is rare across its entire range in the US. It's a species of calcareous soils, such as the dolomite-based soils of the Adams County cedar glades. It's only been recorded in 10 counties in Ohio, but only 4 of those counties have records after 1980. This vast reduction is due to the destruction of our calcareous (alkaline) prairies and fens. Sadly those habitats aren't exactly coming back, and even if they did, orchids are notoriously difficult (and sometimes impossible) to reintroduce into an area. I'll be making a longer post about this species in a few days, so stay tuned for more!

These orchids were only a sliver of the awesome plants I was able to see over the course of the weekend. Southern Ohio is a treasure-trove for botany lovers, and for nature-lovers in general. Thanks for reading!