For this week’s photo gallery I decided to share images of some of the plants that my students and I have been working on for the past few years. Some of these projects are now finished and some of them are ongoing. Luckily, we often work on photogenic groups!
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- This is a lateral view of one of the “Wild Gingers” that PhD student Brandon Sinn has been working with. This one is Asarum delavayi, from China. You can see the inside of the flower that is supposed to be imitating a fungus to lure fly pollinators.
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- Ryan Folk just finished his PhD working on the genus Heuchera. They all have small flowers, usually about a quarter of an inch across, but they are intricate and beautiful up close, as with this H. elegans.
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- Orchids are a primary focus of our work. One of my first students, Julie Morris, worked with the Yellow Lady’s Slippers. This is the Large Yellow, Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens.
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- Craig Barrett worked on a small group of Corallroot orchids (Corallorhiza) for his PhD. This is a variety of C. striata from New Mexico.
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- This Corallorhiza is one of the least showy, but is also one of the most interesting. I described it (C. bentleyi) from West Virginia, where it is quite rare. Its closest relatives are in Mexico — they are not the other species in the genus that occur much closer to it.
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- We have worked broadly in the orchids, trying to understand the structure of the largest subfamily, Epidendroideae. It contains most of the ephiphytic species of the family, including those in Vanda, an Asian genus that is often cultivated. This one is a hybrid based on V. caerulea.
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- Pieris japonica is often cultivated in temperate gardens along with other acid soil-loving plants such as Rhododendrons. They are all in the blueberry family, Ericaceae, which we have been working on for the past several years.
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- Michael Broe finished his PhD working on our native Indian Pipes (shown here) and Pinesap — the genera Monotropa and Hypopitys. They are also members of the Ericaceae, but are leafless and are parasitic on fungi.
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- Another leafless member of Ericaceae, Sarcodes sanguinea, the Snow Plant, shows the shocking colors that some of the leafless taxa can have. This species is native to California and Oregon and sometimes flowers just behind the retreating snow, hence its common name.
About the Author: Dr. John Freudenstein is a Professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology and Director of the OSU Herbarium. All photos are by the author.