This has come up in a dry, unplanted area below fir trees. It is a spike about 12" tall with small speckled pink flowers that resemble orchids. Very cute but discreet. The flowers are so tiny it was hard to focus on them with the tablet
Thank you. I see that they are not particularly rare but they are in a vulnerable part of my yard, what should I do to protect them (2).
Hmm. Well, they won't be fed upon, other than perhaps by insects boring into the fruit and going after the seeds. These grow in association with a fungus that is growing with a nearby conifer, so I suppose the best thing to do is try to ensure the soil doesn't become compacted in the immediate area and nearby.
Always with native orchids the thing to do is to keep the growing site the same, as much as is possible. For instance in this case if those are something like Canadian thistle seedlings around it they should be pulled out.
Where they came up is pretty barren at the base of a big fir and covered with needles. Some weeds come up (false dandelion and similar) that I pull regularly as I don't want it seeding out into the nearby pastures. Now that I know they are there I will put some markers in the area to avoid damaging it.
I have the same plant or a cousin - on the dry side of the Coast / Cascades mtns In a dry forest of ponderosa / fir successioning Open forest ie no bush like one would have at the coast Do not disturb or move it or plant around it Beautiful and fascinating to look at ., isn’t it Indian Pipe is another that is eerie unusual I rely on my Lone Pine native plant books (one for coast and other for interior ) ÉDIT to add - i find those tomato cages in plain metal to be useful protecting native lilies and coral root and milkweed, the plant that butterflies like