Spotted Coralroot Orchid

The spotted coralroot orchid (Corallorhiza maculata) is quite the sight. For one thing, it's a wild orchid: those are more common than many of us think, but still always worth a long look.

Even more interestingly, though, it's a parasite. Unlike the vast majority of plants, coralroot orchids have no chlorophyll, so they make none of their own food: they never even bother growing above ground except to flower and spread their seeds. Instead, they steal food from fungi that are symbiotic with other plants' roots. Normally, the fungi help the plants with nutrient uptake, and in return the plants feed them with sugars from photosynthesis; that symbiotic relationship is called a mycorrhiza. Coralroots, however, cheat on the mycorrhizal network: they take both nutrients and sugars, while contributing nothing. As a plant that steals food from mycorrhizae instead of making any of its own, Corallorhiza is a holoparasitic mycoheterotroph.

This doesn't make them weeds. On the contrary, coralroots are a delight to see in the wild: not only are they beautiful and colorful, they're a sign of a healthy forest with a mycorrhizal network robust enough to support some hangers-on. In the area where I drew this one, there were more coralroots growing than I've ever seen in one place -- dozens of them just in the campground and along the trails -- and the forest was all the richer for their presence.

5-1/2 x 7-1/2"; technical pen and watercolor on cold-press watercolor paper