Pacific Coralroot

Pacific coralroot is a native orchid with no green leaves at all. In late spring and summer its slender, reddish purple stalks push up through the needle litter of moist conifer forests, each carrying a loose spike of small orchid flowers. Because it lacks green leaves, it depends on fungi in the soil for its food, a way of life botanists call myco-heterotrophic.

The name coralroot, like the genus name Corallorhiza, points to what lies underground: a small, branching rhizome that looks like a piece of coral. The species name honors the botanist Carl Franz Mertens. Most plants are reddish purple to lavender, but now and then a single stalk, or even a whole group, lacks the red pigment and comes up creamy yellow. Plants may stand alone or in clusters of many stalks.

Look closely at one flower and you will see a classic orchid design: three narrow sepals and two petals arch over a short, curved column, above a broad lip bearing a small tooth at each side. Pacific coralroot grows in rich humus under conifers at low to middle elevations. It is easy to walk past on a dim forest trail, so watch for its upright purple spikes standing among the needles.