Orchids and Mosquitos

Platanthera hookeri

This orchid should be called The Adder Mouth Orchid because the flowers look just like the mouth of a snake about to bite you!

Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens

These False Truffles are definitely not good to eat. 

I finally took a decent photo of a cedar tip up in a cedar swamp. 

I think I could write a book on tick behavioral biology at the end of this job.  

Some cool orange wood rotting fungi. 

The rare Moonwort Botrychium crenulatum. 

Another rare Moonwort, Botrychium pallidum. These guys are tiny and really hard to spot out in the field!

I love seeing all these frogs and toads because they are cute and they eat mosquitos. 

Another beautiful Coral Root Orchid, Corallorhiza maculata. 

The very common Moonwort, Botrychium virginianum. 

The sporophore of B. virginianum. 

The young fruit of the Beaked Hazel (Corylus cornuta). 

The Showy Lady Slipper (Cypripedium reginae) is the Minnesota state flower and you can see why. 

It is huge and gorgeous. 

This is the flower of the One Flowered Wintergreen (Moneses uniflora)

There are lots of interesting fungi in the hardwood forests. 

Not sure of the species of this Iris but it is quite a sight in the swamps. 

Slime mold!

Platanthera aquilonis most likely, but it might still be too early to tell. 

This tiny little orchid is called Listera cordata. 

This is a little wild cranberry (Oxycoccus quadripetalus). 

Twin Flower (Linnaea borealis)

A very interesting caterpillar that hitched a ride on my vest for a little while. 

These are the young female cones of the deciduous conifer called Tamarack (Larix laricina). They look just like rose buds. 

Pink Pyrola (Pyrola asarifolia)

I have only found this lichen three times out in the forest! It is Platismatia tuckermannii. 

This is what I look like out in the field now that it is mosquito and fly season! That bug net really saves my sanity some days.