Yadon's piperia facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Yadon's piperia |
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| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Genus: |
Platanthera
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| Species: |
yadonii
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| Synonyms | |
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Piperia yadonii Rand.Morgan & Ackerman |
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The Platanthera yadonii, also known as Yadon's piperia or Yadon's rein orchid, is a very rare orchid. It grows only in a small area along the coast of northern Monterey County, California. In 1998, the United States government officially listed this plant as an endangered species. The biggest danger to its survival is new buildings and roads, which destroy its natural home as more people move into the area. One important place where Yadon's piperia lives, the Del Monte Forest near Monterey, California, is even part of a federal lawsuit to protect this orchid and other endangered plants.
This special wildflower can sometimes stay hidden underground for a year or more, not growing any leaves or flowers. When it does appear, it grows leaves in the spring. Later, it sends up a tall stem with many flowers. Each flower has both green and white parts. Yadon's piperia likes sandy soil and gets its food from tiny fungi living in the ground.
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What is Yadon's Rein Orchid?
Like most other orchids, P. yadonii is a green plant that lives for many years (it's a perennial). It grows from round structures called tubers that are buried in the soil. Its fruit is a small capsule filled with tiny seeds. The plant's pollen is sticky and comes in small sacs. Also, its stigma (the part that receives pollen) is joined with its style (a stalk-like part) to form a column.
Yadon's piperia has a single flower, usually one to two millimeters wide. At the bottom of the plant, near the ground, it has a group of leaves arranged in a circle, like a rosette.
How Does It Grow?
Underground, this wild orchid has a rhizome structure, which is like a creeping stem. From this rhizome, tubers grow. The rhizome helps the plant get nutrients from fungi in the soil and can also store some of these nutrients.
A rosette of leaves grows from the tuber at the soil surface. There are usually two or three leaves, and they are shaped like a spear (lanceolate). Each leaf is about 10 to 15 centimeters long and 20 to 35 millimeters wide. Younger plants often have smaller leaves.
The plant produces a dense cluster of flowers on a single, straight stem. This stem can be anywhere from 12 to 55 centimeters tall. Each flower has a small "spur" (a tube-like part) that is 1.5 to 5 millimeters long. This spur is shorter than those found on other orchids in the same group.
Yadon's Piperia usually has three upper flower parts (tepals) that are both green and white. It also has three lower tepals that are only white. The earliest it starts to bloom is June. Sometimes, when it blooms later in the season, as late as August, all its flower parts might be completely white.
How to Identify It
A key way to identify Yadon's piperia is its short spur, which is typically 1.5 to 6.0 millimeters long. By the time this orchid blooms, its leaves usually have withered away, except for a few very large plants.
Yadon's piperia grows in the same areas as other similar orchids like P. elegans and P. elongata. Because of this, it's easiest to tell them apart when they are flowering. Sometimes, you can even find Yadon's piperia growing mixed in with P. elongata and P. elegans populations.
Reproduction and Life Cycle
The seeds of Yadon's piperia, like those of other orchids, are very tiny and do not have much stored food. For these seeds to sprout, they must come into contact with the right kinds of fungi in the soil.
When the seeds sprout, the young plants (seedlings) get their food from the fungus. They continue to do this until they grow their first leaves and can start making their own food through photosynthesis. This way of getting food is called myco-heterotrophy. Sometimes, the plant can also create new plants from its existing parts, which is called vegetative reproduction.
Where Yadon's Rein Orchid Lives
Yadon's piperia is found in only a few places in the coastal part of northern Monterey County, California. Most of these locations are in the Del Monte Forest on the Monterey Peninsula. Small groups have also been found in the Prunedale Hills. An isolated group has been seen further south on Rocky Creek Ridge near Big Sur.
Specific places where it grows include the S.F.B. Morse Botanical Reserve, Manzanita County Park, and The Nature Conservancy’s Blohm Ranch Nature Preserve. Each group of plants is quite small, often covering an area of twenty acres or less. All the places where it grows are less than 250 meters (about 820 feet) above sea level and within six miles of the Pacific Ocean.
Its Favorite Homes
Yadon's piperia mostly lives in three types of habitats:
- Monterey pine forests: This is where more than 80 percent of the known populations are found. Sometimes, it grows with Gowen's cypress trees.
- California Northern coastal scrub: This habitat has smaller plants like Hooker's manzanita or Eastwood's manzanita.
- Monterey cypress forests: Another type of forest where it can be found.
In woodland areas, these orchids grow under partial shade in open spaces, usually among herbaceous (non-woody) plants in the understory.
The Monterey Peninsula and northern Big Sur areas have a special marine climate. This is because cool water rises from the Monterey submarine canyon. The area gets about 40 to 50 centimeters (16 to 20 inches) of rain each year. However, summer fog drip is very important. It provides extra moisture for Yadon's Piperia and other plants that might not survive with just the rainfall.
Protecting Yadon's Rein Orchid
Platanthera yadonii was named after Vern Yadon, who used to be the director of the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History. The Monterey Peninsula, where all Yadon's piperia plants live, is known for having many unique species that are found nowhere else.
Yadon's piperia, along with other threatened species in northern California, is protected by the U.S. Government, the State of California, local governments, and private conservation groups. These groups have created plans to protect the orchid, including official endangered species classifications and a Recovery Plan from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Even with all these efforts, the total number of plants might not be enough to survive long-term without more protection.
The orchid was listed as a federally endangered species in 1998. This happened after a study for the city of Monterey showed that the plants in the Del Monte forest were in danger from new building projects. In 1995, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced its plan to classify the species as endangered based on this information.
It's hard to keep track of Yadon's piperia populations because each tuber doesn't always produce leaves or flowers every year. To make it even harder, the plant can only be positively identified when it's flowering. But even when the plant grows leaves, it might not produce a flower that year. Plus, by the time a flower appears, the leaves have usually died back. This means that if you survey during flowering season, you might miss plants that grew leaves but didn't flower.
