RHH's photos with the keyword: chuckanut

This is the third native orchid of the season to be blooming in our area (I don't think I posted the second). It's the Striped Coralroot, Corallorhiza striata var. striata. I was out today and hiked about 13 miles doing some orchid hunting in new areas, but this I found in a location in Larrabee State Park where we had seen this orchid before. The Coralroots are myco-heterotrophic, depending for their food on a complex relationship with a soil fungus. They have no chlorophyll of their own and no leaves, so all one ever find is an erect flower spike, hard to see before the blooms open and almost invisible after the blooms are finished.

I am interrupting my photos of the Canadian Rockies to post some pictures from last Saturday's hike with son Edward. We went fossil hunting in the area of Slide Mountain and Racehorse Creek and found plenty of what we were were hunting. This is a fossil of fern leaves along with other leaves in carbonaceous shale. Another fossil of a palm frond is shown below. This rock is only about a foot across, but the rock below is a huge boulder. The whole area is a fossil hunter's paradise, but these were found in the area of a massive landslide that took place in 2009 (more information with the other picture), uncovering thousands of fossils. Slide Mountain is in Whatcom County, Washington in the foothills of the North Cascades and overlooks the Nooksack River and Racehorse Creek and the formations are referred to as Eocene Chuckanut formations, layers of shale and sandstone.

Last Saturday, November 9, son Edward and I hiked around Slide Mountain and the Racehorse Creek landslide, looking for fossils. The hike was more of a muddy scramble than anything else, but we found plenty of fossils and also met up with some of Edward's co-workers and spent most of the afternoon with them doing some more fossil hunting and exploring. The Racehorse Creek landslide happened on January 5, 2009, after a days of warm stormy weather and rain (what we call here a Pineapple Express). About 500,000 cubit feet of rock and earth slid down the mountain and into Racehorse Creek temporarily blocking the Creek and two days later causing a massive flood of water, rock and timber down Racehorse Creek. The landslide left a 350 foot cliff in the side of the mountain and uncovered thousands of Eocene fossils, mostly of plants, though bird tracks have also been found. The debris field itself is a jumble of boulders and timber and the best place to look for fossils, though it requires some serious scrambling, but the fossils can be found all over the mountain and we looked in several other places as well. The area is layers of soft carbonaceous shale which quickly weathers and crumbles and Chuckanut sandstone. The fossils are found in both with inclusions of coal as well. This is a photo of a whole palm frond and pieces of other fronds in shale. The rock is around four feet long and several feet wide, to give an indication of scale, and many of these fossils are massive.

Best viewed in a large size.

These Striped Coralroots are finished blooming now except at higher elevations, but are one of our favorite native orchids, and one we always look for when in bloom. They have the largest and most beautiful flowers of all the Coralroots in our area and are also more difficult to find than many of the others. This photo was taken in Larrabee State Park on the coast and on a rainy day. We found a lot of Striped Coralroots there this year, perhaps due to the late, cold and wet spring. Larrabee is in the Chuckanut Mountains and is a wonderful place both for its wildflowers and for its tide pools. The Coralroots are mycotropic plants, without leaves (which makes them hard to find when not in bloom) and without chlorophyll, deriving their nourishment from the soil through a relationship with a fungus (funny thing with which to have a relationship, but that's the way it is). Interesting plants! More photos and text here: nativeorchidsofthepacificnorthwest.blogspot.com/2012/05/s...