I found three native orchids this afternoon. I’m not sure which Spiranthes they are, but not Slender Ladies Tresses of the green throat, Spiranthes lacera var. gracilis.
Great to see en situ, and blooming now…they are an enigma to cultivate, though not needing the usual orchid-mycellia relationship… but, they are hard to do from seed, yet, a mature plant will seed like the dickens to anything around it in nursery cultivation.
I grow a lot of plants, and this one is among the top ten of enigmas to me. Still grow it though.
I haven’t checked them today, but they often vanish overnight. Deer, I presume.
Do you have a picture of the foliage?
Who’s Ladie?
A wandering agriculturist, rather like but not as well known as Johnny Appleseed.
Ladie spread native orchids throughout North America during the eighteenth century. He was somewhat ridiculed by most Americans of the time, being considered a sissy because he dealt in flowers rather than something as staple as an apple that could be eaten, made into cider or fed to animals as forage.
Ladie’s fate changed drastically when he caught the eye of Catherine the Great of Russia during an Imperial visit for his vegetative reproduction or some other aspect of his personality.
Becoming wealthy and immigrating to Russia Ladie painted “Sod You All” on the stern of the ship Catherine hired for him and sailed to his fortune in Europe, leaving Boston with plenty of apples but a dearth of florists until this very day.
Wow, carnivorousplant, I’m very impressed that you know a bit about Edward Ladie; his story has been largely ignored by the botanical world, probably because of his rather sad ending.
As you say, he set sail for Europe, and, with Catherine’s connections, plied his trade as an Orchid seeder. Europeans, unlike Americans who thought of native orchids as “sissified”, greatly appreciated Ladie’s efforts, and he became in demand by Royalty to seed their woods with the exotic US native orchids. Unfortunately, the proper conditions weren’t to be had in European soil, and the crop failed. He then fled to Russia, and spent some time in Catherine’s court. He was a favorite of hers, she adored his simple woodsy ways, and greatly enjoyed their walks about the forest.
She enabled him to study the native orchids of Russia and Europe, and he began to seed orchids again, with the proper conditions. At this point, the history gets murky: One version says that one of Catherine’s suitors didn’t like her walks in the woods with a commoner, and plotted against him. Another claims that Catherine was so engaged with Ladie’s little known, yet astute, political opinions, that she sent him to visit her good friend Voltaire, in France, because Ladie was such an inspiration. “This man has the secrets of the Orchids, and in growing the flower, has also discovered a wealth of sustenance in our very being.”
Ladie did go to France, and met Voltaire but once, shortly before his death. Legend has it that Voltaire was awed by Ladie’s description of native orchid growth, and their place in the metaphysical scheme of things. A month later, Ladie died in a sad accident; he was a bystander in a carriage accident, and the horse rolled over on him. Catherine the Great was deeply saddened. In a short time, she had lost her friend Voltaire, and her beloved friend Ladie.
His legacy lives on, though: Ladies tresses, our native American orchids, are named after him, as he seeded them profusely in his time in the US.
Also, as a wink to his relationship with Catherine the Great, Moscow has a wildly successful lingerie store ,Wild Orchid/Dikaia Orkhidea.
Not to mention the horse.
Later dating, and an obscure topic, but am really surprised that SD minds didn’t get the mycellia strands composting through this thread.
Guess that botanical geeks might be the last stronghold of geekdom, lately.
It is in fact little known outside botanical geekdom that Voltaire’s comment about the execution of Admiral Byng…“The English ocassionally shoot a few admirals to encourage the others”…was indeed expressed not by Voltaire, but Ladie. His remark, however, was in the most bitter satire, for it is well known that Ladie kept a deep love for his abandoned country through his short remaining life in exhile. It was only the people he distained, as expressed in two other quotes misrepresented to others, “There’s one born every minute”, and “There are no stupid questions, only stupid people.”
Perhaps some day Ladie’s papers on mycellia will be discovered; there are tantalizing references in The Voyage of the Beagle and The Descent of Man. The first involves a discussion with Ladie in a bar in Paraguay, the latter is a vague reference to Ladie by Darwin and is unable to be dated. The tantalizing short reference is most often quoted as: “And then, while in our cups somewhere between introspective and shit-faced, the son of a bitch suggested that a fungus might support, indeed, be required for the growing of some terrestrial orchids.”