Saving Monkeyface and its Habitat

Monkeyface Orchid (Platanthera integrilabia) is one of our prettiest native orchids, though if you've seen it you can consider yourself lucky. Although it ranges from the southeastern to the south central United States, Monkeyface Orchid is rare throughout its range, occupying a very limited wetland niche: seepage bogs or slopes, and streamheads in open forests. There are only eight known populations in the Georgia Piedmont, all of them decreasing in size and vigor. Urban encroachment, large scale conversion of habitat into timber production and competition from invasive exotic or overstory plants have made Platanthera integrilabia a threatened species in Georgia and a candidate for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The good news is that some constructive action is underway to protect Monkeyface Orchid in Georgia. Four sites in Georgia are the focus of a new conservation project funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's Five Star/Urban Waters Grant Program. It will be conducted by ABG in partnership with a number of other organizations.* The goal of the project is to restore the habitat and reintroduce plants grown from seed (collected on site and germinated in ABG's lab) into their restored habitat.

Restoration will take time and lots of hard work. Matt Richards, ABG's Conservation Coordinator, is spearheading the project for ABG. According to Matt, these sites are under constant pressure from illegal trash dumping, competition from invasive exotic plants, closure of the forest canopy and herbivory. The first step will be to map and survey each site. Next, a management plan will be developed for each site, taking into account the threats specific to each site, with the immediate goal of protecting the existing plants. Some sites may need deer fencing. At others, saplings will be removed and mature trees girdled to remove competition and open the canopy. Invasive exotic plants will be removed; garbage will be hauled away.

Monkeyface Orchid flowers in August. Capsules mature in about three months. Matt will collect capsules and germinate the seed in ABG's lab. The germination rate in cultivation, according to Matt, is low compared with that of tropical orchids, only about 50%. In the fall, Matt will plant deflasked seedlings in beds in our nursery, where they will remain for about a year.

Once the habitat has been restored and a management plan enacted, Matt and his associates will reintroduce seed propagated plants. At this stage the goal will be to establish flowering sized plants that produce seed. Fall is the season that Matt prefers for outplanting of year-old seedlings. It takes another two years for the plants to flower. Habitat management will continue in the meantime, and the sites will be monitored.

In the United States many threatened ecosystems occur in and around urban areas, and they are a high priority for restoration despite their often degraded condition and remnant status. "It's significant that we have wetlands and natural areas in Metro Atlanta that harbor rare plants like Monkeyface Orchid," said Dr. Jenny Cruse-Sanders, Vice President for Science and Conservation at ABG. It is important that we focus our efforts and expertise towards conserving this species in our own community."

Congratulations to our conservation team on this exciting new project!

*NFWF Five Star/Urban Waters Restoration Partners:
Atlanta Botanical Garden

Georgia DNR Non-Game Conservation Section

Georgia State Parks

Big Canoe POA

Sewanee Mountain Preserve

The Dunn Family

Rock Spring Farms

Georgia Environmental Restoration Professionals

Georgia DOT

Georgia Power

Chattahoochee Nature Center

Lovett School

Grady High School

Peachtree Garden Club

Crested Yellow Orchid

Monday was a gorgeous day for photographing Fringed Orchids (Platanthera) in our nursery. Of the 14 species of Platanthera found in Georgia, eight are in cultivation in our nursery plus a number of hybrids with a confusing array of intermediate characteristics. Fortunately, Matt Richards, our Conservation Coordinator, happened by and brought me up to speed. Matt knows them all. Not only does he conduct our conservation field work with Platanthera, he also propagates a number of them from seed in our lab and grows them in our nursery. He began by comparing the different species.

Crested Yellow Orchid (Platanthera cristata), pictured above, is one of a handful of yellow/orange Platanthera found in Georgia. In Georgia it is not as widespread or as common as Yellow Fringed Orchid (Platanthera ciliaris), but it has been found in at least 13 counties. Like P. ciliaris, it grows in moist open pinelands, wet meadows, roadsides and ditches. P. cristata starts flowering a bit before P. ciliaris, but there is some overlap in their flowering seasons. Where they occur together they often hybridize.

Even from a distance, it is easy to distinguish between the two species. In overall dimensions and flower size, P. cristata is about half the size of P. ciliaris. The inflorescence is more cylindrical in shape. A closer comparison reveals that P. cristata's spur is about as long as the flower's lip, while P. ciliaris' spur is much longer than its lip. In P. cristata, the column forms a beak, or downward hook over the lip. The lateral petals are fringed over the entire margin, and not just the tips, as in P. ciliaris.

Crested Yellow Orchid grows in wetlands outside of Georgia, too. Its range follows the east coast of the US from New Hampshire south to Florida and across the southeast to Texas. Platantheras are among our most beautiful native orchids and a fascinating component of our disappearing wetlands.

Yellow Fringed Orchid

It might surprise you to learn how widespread this spectacular orchid is. The range of Yellow Fringed Orchid (Platanthera ciliaris) occupies nearly the entire eastern half of North America. But it is limited to wetland habitats, a potential Achilles' heel, since these habitats have been shrinking in percent area, especially during the last fifty years.

Platanthera ciliaris, with its spectacularly fringed lip and long spur, is familiar to many residents on the US east coast. In the southeastern states it grows in acidic soils in longleaf pine savannahs, wet open meadows, forests, seepage slopes and road edges. In the northern part of its range it grows in bogs and wetlands. Like many wetland species, it depends on fire to maintain an open canopy.

Platanthera ciliaris is pollinated by large butterflies, especially swallowtails, who feed on nectar at the bottom of the flower's spur. When a butterfly probes for nectar with its long tongue, the viscidium of the pollinarium is stuck to the insect's compound eye.

A few fascinating studies have found evidence for different pollination ecotypes in Yellow Fringed Orchid. An ecotype is a locally adapted population that is genetically different from other populations. The studies found that in the mountains, the short-tongued butterfly, Papilio troilus, was the predominant and most effective pollinator; and in the coastal plain, the long-tongued Papilio palamedes was the predominant, but less effective pollinator. The coastal plain butterflies were less effective pollinators because their longer tongues kept their bodies at a distance from the pollinarium. The research suggested that the long-tongued coastal plain butterflies were exerting selection pressure for longer spurs on the coastal plain populations of Platanthera ciliaris.

ABG's Conservation Coordinator, Matt Richards, says that Platanthera ciliaris is easy to germinate in the lab, fast growing and produces vigorous seedlings. Some of the plants that Matt produced are in the nursery and are flowering now.