Meet Plantathera x canbyi a new resident of the Nassawango Creek Preserve on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
My good friend JC in Albuquerque sent me a neat link today to the Washington Post article about its discovery. Seems this is a naturally occurring hybrid of the white fringed orchid (white, duh!) and the crested yellow orchid (orange). Both of its parents are considered rare and are protected, and this offspring has only been found once before in Maryland - and that was nearly 20 years ago.
Can you imagine having a job in which you go out and look for rare plants? Doesn't that sound like fun? Actually, it was a little more trouble than that. Apparently they burned some 10,000 acres this spring in an attempt to clear out opportunistic and invasive species and to see what native species would then have the opportunity to re-emerge. In addition to this pretty little orchid, there were several species of spurge.
In case you would like to see Canbyi's parents, here they are, too:
"mom" and "dad"
Enjoy!
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