differentiating Spiranthes spp. in the Chicago Wilderness region
@evan8 or @bouteloua - is there a good reference for diagnostic differences between Spiranthes around here? or would either of you be willing to write a few sentences about it? :)
Also, I don't really know how to use these journal/notes things on here, so pls let me know if there is a better way to do such a thing ...
Thank you!
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@arethusa is a total rock star with orchids. Check out this journal entry (with wonderful illustrations too!):
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/arethusa/12170-spiranthes-magnicamporum-vs-spiranthes-cernua
thank you @sambiology and @arethusa! will check that out and share.
Undereducated and overly opinionated rant incoming:
I'm of the opinion that we can't really know what it is without genetic analysis.
http://iowaplants.com/flora/family/Orchidaceae/spiranthes/spiranthes_spp.html
If a plant can get 2 sets of chromosomes from mom and three from two different dads, and those dads don't need to be the same species.... we can't say what it is.
I also think that any recent comments about S. ovalis "moving north" are due to increased awareness of the genus, and increased observations, as well as the potential for the species to move via pollen through S. cernua rather than seed...
It's all just a mess, and we don't know enough now to make good morphological determinations of species level observations.
I just call everything that looks anything close to S. cernua by that name.
Also, "Facultatively Agamospermic Polyploid Compilospecies" is an awesome term to bust out at parties.
And just because we don't know what it is from looking at it, doesn't make it less awesome.
In fact, that makes it MORE awesome. What if instead of being "facultatively agamospermic", meiosis is just messed up due to the extra material present, and it makes fertile embryos that way? That's actually kinda awesome itself.
One of my genetics professors had a great definition of "species" -- "a human recognizable unit of evolution." I know there are loads of cryptic species and sympatric species that are just giggling at us as we try to give them a name. :)
@evan8 so glad to elicit your rant! That Iowa page is really helpful - mostly in coming to exactly the conclusion you did: awesome and perplexing (polyploid and cleistogamous!)
I'm no botanist, so I'm just trying to figure out how a vanilla plant would smell (https://www.daily-journal.com/news/local/admire-native-orchids-then-leave-them-alone/article_57cc62a8-f43a-5afb-b328-b287f555a8ca.amp.html), so that it would be S. magnicamporum, or whether there are actually one (lacera) or TWO (cernua) spirals of flowers (https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/prairie/plantx/nodding_orchidx.htm).
I always use S. cernua, but mostly because I don't know better and though have a little more education (and don't ever smell the vanilla), will stick with that.
Lacera seems totally different to me.
So many of these have a scent, it's not dependable as a distinguishing character for S. cernua vs S. magnicamporum. Even some of the Platanthera species have a similar scent.
lying in wait: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/38203
Woof... Yeah. Some more reading for tonight.
This is just another example of why Cassi is so awesome.
@bouteloua is a legend indeed. All hail Cassi! :)
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