Crippled Cranefly

Does this little darling look like a fly?  

It's named Crippled Cranefly orchid supposedly because it looks like...you guessed it, a crippled cranefly.  This tiny orchid is a native in North Carolina.  It loves the forest leaf litter and only has leaves in the winter when the trees let light into the forest floor.

 

A little green amongst the brown

Tucked in the brown leaf litter are small plants.

Crippled cranefly orchid,

Adam and Eve orchid,

and Little Brown Jug.

 

Hiding in the leaf litter

Orchids!

The crippled cranefly orchid. (see here)

The Adam and Eve orchid. (see here)

Both of these put out their leaves in the winter when the overstory trees lose their leaves letting light come to the forest floor.

 

Crane-fly orchid

We saw the leaves last winter, now in summer come the flowers.

Hundreds of little spikes of orchids popping out of the ground.

See here for more about these little guys.

Orchid surprise

Hidden in the leaf litter in our backyard we found these leaves.  It's a cranefly orchid!  (see here)

The leaves come out in the winter and disappear in the spring.  Later the flower comes up alone.  Each leaf is a separate plant, so we have a colony of hundreds!  We'll watch carefully for the flowers.

 

House flower

When you're stuck in the house, what's better than an orchid

Or a lady slipper?

When is a leaf not a leaf?

It looks like a leaf, except it's the wrong kind of leaf for this orchid...

It's a tiny little bug, pretending to be a leaf, veins and all.  I believe it's a planthopper (here), probably sucking the life out of our plant, but so cute.