Today It’s Orchids

I have spent most of my life being interested in something I read somewhere once.

What I had read was that every state in the United States has a population of native orchids.

I love orchids, as, I guess does everyone, so I found that fact to be interesting.

I found it to be hopeful also.

Because it fed my hope that, since except for a year in Saigon and four months in Fukuoka, I had always lived in a state in the United States and therefore might expect – or at least hope – to see one.

A native orchid..

But I never saw one.

Native orchid.

The closest I got was in Missouri when I lived in Jefferson City..

I subscribed to the Missouri Conservationist and that magazine frequently had pictures of native orchids.

Native to Missouri.

So it was a life changing event for me when, several years ago, my wife and I were hiking in the woods on Lopez Island and I saw a little purple flower that attracted my attention enough to make me want to take its picture.

As I hunkered down on the ground – it was really a small flower, close to the ground – and looked at it to decide how to photograph it, I noticed that it was an orchid.

Since then, every year about this time I go to my secret orchid places and take their pictures.

Today I was wandering aimlessly in a woods far from my secret places and there on the ground was a little purple flower.

After looking around a bit I discovered that there were lots of them

And they were orchids.

So here are some of their pictures.

These are all purple.

Some of the ones at my secret place are brown.