Epipactis Zinn (Ws.)
We had been living on Vancouver Island for a few years, lovingly tending our little remnant of original vegetation and admiring all the little ‘natives’ that began to show, after we had cleared the ground of periwinkle, grass, maple seedlings etc. My husband and I have developed, over the course of a long ‘education’ in gardening, the philosophy of leaving to grow anything that we don’t recognize as undesirable for a particular area.
So it happened that in a very dry place, we noticed little green tubes growing up, similar to Lilies of the Valley; these tubes grew to about 30 cm high, developed leaves along the stem and from the top axils sprouted small green and pink flowers. Hm – not much of anything, I thought. Then I looked closer, examining the 2 cm wide flowers: three green sepals, two green petals, a green column and a maroon, three-lobed lip. It was a very small orchid flower and it smelled faintly of vanilla!
 Epipactis helleborine |
Excitedly, I showed it to one of our new friends, who had grown up on the island. “Oh yes – that weed! Sure, it is an orchid, but it grows all over the place; I even have to pull it out of my driveway!” Well – perhaps he would pull it out but I would nurture it! Then I looked up this little foundling in my books: its name is Epipactis helleborine.
According to one source, the genus Epipactis, (related to Cephalanthera) is not too well organized by the taxonomists. There are up to twenty-five species of these usually rather tall terrestrial orchids, mostly in Asia and Europe; only two occur in North America.
One species, the somewhat rare Epipactis gigantea grows in the Western part of this continent, ranging from Canada to Mexico. It is said to prefer alkaline soil, even growing near hot springs in lime-stone. It can grow up to 1.2m tall, often in small colonies, blooming between March to August with 3 cm wide flowers that have coppery-green sepals, pink or purple petals with darker veins and a lip shaped like a gravy-boat, the spout of which is the orange-coloured midlobe, the column is yellow. Because of its movable lip, its common name is “Chatterbox”.
Now we are getting to our little wildling on the wall, the Epipactis helleborine (or E. latifolia). This one can be found in the Eastern parts of North America and again in the milder climate of British Columbia, including Vancouver Island and places south. The first mention of it growing in the U.S. was in 1879 and in Canada 1880. It is a native from Europe and may have been brought along with immigrants as a remedy against gout. I have not found this species mentioned in my German wildflower books, perhaps it comes from Britain. What I did find in those books was another Epipactis (E. atrorubens), which grows on sandy beaches in Germany and smells of Vanilla. There are pictures of a red and green Cephalanthera species which looks quite similar to our E. helleborine; these are called “Little Birds of the Forest”.
After several years of encouraging these little European imports and now seeing hundreds of their flowers in charming, soft colours of white/green, cream/pink and green/purple everywhere in our gardens, I must admit that I feel we have enough of them and I treat these orchids like regular garden plants, that is, I cut off their seed heads.
A point to ponder: we are now happily planting non-native Cypripediums, Bletillas and Dactylorrhizas in our gardens. Will these, too, become naturalized in suitable Canadian sites?
Ingrid Schmidt-Ostrander - Canadian Orchid Congress