In the 1920s, WV botanist Earl Core discovered an uncommon Midwestern orchid in Pendleton County's Smoke Hole canyon. It was quite a discovery.
Eighty years later, two graduate students were mowing invasive Japanese stilt grass out of a newly acquired one thousand-acre Nature Conservancy easement in the Grant County part of the Smoke Hole.
Stilt grass may well be the scourge of the 21st century, and is covering large amounts of forested land in most West Virginia counties, including Calhoun.
While killing the stilt grass, they stumbled upon a second stand of Crested Coralroot Orchid.
Botanists say there had actually been another population of the orchid discovered in Grant County, but it was destroyed about 15 years ago by a limestone quarry.
Ashton Berdine of The Nature Conservancy says Crested Coralroot is considered vulnerable or imperiled in every state where it grows.
Orchids can't live just anywhere. They're picky. This particular orchid lives only in dry, open woodlands with rich soil in a very specific, prairie-like, sub-habitat.
The Smoke Hole area, with its dry, rocky glades on nutrient-rich limestone soil, is a good haven for the endangered orchid.
Coralroot Orchid image courtesy of
www.dnr.state.md.us
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