This is the flower of the common woodland orchid Tipularia discolor. Everyone has seen the single leaf of this orchid in spring on the forest floor but many may not recognize the flower because it doesn’t appear until late summer and is so tiny. By the time the raceme of flowers appear the leaf has vanished. This drawing is a 20x enlargement of a single flower from the raceme which I viewed with my stereo microscope. The long stalk coming from the left is the flower’s pedicel and the long tube on the right is the spur where nectar is stored. I discovered that the swelling of pedicel just before it reaches the flower houses the inferior ovary. Like all orchids there are 3 sepals, purple striped in this orchid, and 3 petals one of which is the labellum which is a runway for pollinators as they approach the entrance to the spur. As the pollinator is sucking nectar from the spur the spherical pollinium sticks to its head and the pollen is carried to the next flower. The pollinium is part of the column which also contains the stigma which connects to the inferior ovary. I learned a lot about orchid flowers thru this microscopic dissection.
Thank you for the information Glenn! It spurred me to look it up online. I was thinking a graphite drawing (in the background) of a stem would be a nice addition to your drawing to show the abundance of flowers that there are on one stem.
@doug-milne Good idea, Doug. I’m not sure if there are any fresh specimens in the woods this time of year and my original specimen has long wilted so I may need to work from a photo. The challenge for me is how to keep all those flowers in the raceme from becoming just a tangle.
This is the flower of the common woodland orchid Tipularia discolor. Everyone has seen the single leaf of this orchid in spring on the forest floor but many may not recognize the flower because it doesn’t appear until late summer and is so tiny. By the time the raceme of flowers appear the leaf has vanished. This drawing is a 20x enlargement of a single flower from the raceme which I viewed with my stereo microscope. The long stalk coming from the left is the flower’s pedicel and the long tube on the right is the spur where nectar is stored. I discovered that the swelling of pedicel just before it reaches the flower houses the inferior ovary. Like all orchids there are 3 sepals, purple striped in this orchid, and 3 petals one of which is the labellum which is a runway for pollinators as they approach the entrance to the spur. As the pollinator is sucking nectar from the spur the spherical pollinium sticks to its head and the pollen is carried to the next flower. The pollinium is part of the column which also contains the stigma which connects to the inferior ovary. I learned a lot about orchid flowers thru this microscopic dissection.
Thank you for the information Glenn! It spurred me to look it up online. I was thinking a graphite drawing (in the background) of a stem would be a nice addition to your drawing to show the abundance of flowers that there are on one stem.
@doug-milne Good idea, Doug. I’m not sure if there are any fresh specimens in the woods this time of year and my original specimen has long wilted so I may need to work from a photo. The challenge for me is how to keep all those flowers in the raceme from becoming just a tangle.