PARIS – “Wild orchids can be found everywhere, even in your own backyard,” Michael Hicks told an overflow crowd at the McLaughlin Garden Center on Monday night. “Some are small and easy to overlook, but they are everywhere,” he said.
Hicks’ intense interest and extensive knowledge were obvious as he gave his audience details on the life of orchids while sharing pictures of flowers he has located. So far, he has located 18 species of orchids in Oxford County. Sources claim there are 46 or more varieties in Maine. Many are rare and restricted to a very limited range. In all of North America there are only about 300 species, while worldwide there are more than 20,000.
His goal is to find, photograph and sketch at least one more species each summer.
The reason most people don’t find more wild orchids is not that they are so rare, Hicks said, but that many are inconspicuous and hard to identify. He hopes to feature his sketches in a field guide to Maine orchids so more people can find and identify the plants.
Maine orchids grow in all sorts of locations, from sunny open fields to deeply shaded bogs. While working on a recent job in Portland, Hicks found three different varieties in a small stand of woods between the Maine Mall and the Maine Turnpike. Some are large, showy and easily identified, like the common Lady Slipper and the Large Purple Fringed Orchid. The flowers of others can be recognized as orchids only after close examination.
While most people think of them as being rare, at one time several hundred tons of dried Lady Slipper root was shipped to Europe each year for use in aphrodisiacs and nerve tonics. Lady Slipper seeds are as fine as dust and travel great distances on the wind. Unlike most seeds, they have no stored food for the embryo plant. The first two years of a new plant’s life are spent underground living as a parasite on a special fungus. The third year it will put up its first leaf, and seven years after germinating it may finally bloom. They are not particular about habitat as long as the proper fungus is available to support the seedlings.
Since so few Lady Slippers produce seeds naturally, Hicks has developed a technique for artificially pollinating them. While his technique took him some time of trial and error to perfect, he gladly shared it with those attending.
Hicks and his wife, Patricia, are the fifth generation of his family to live on the farm carved out by his pioneer ancestors in Bethel. He learned to appreciate nature while hiking and camping with his father.
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