Day 221: For the last two weeks or so, I have been monitoring three sites in the hopes of seeing Corallorhiza trifida, rare at Mount Rainier National Park. We discovered it two years ago and thought we'd hit the jackpot with a total of four specimens; at that time, it had not been observed in the Park since 1999. In 2016, my two botany partners and I made a concerted search for the species and turned up a whopping sixteen. In the vernacular, we were "over the moon!" Until yesterday, my 2017 total was again sixteen, all found while searching alone for threads of green no larger or longer than the lead in a standard pencil. It's slow work. Every footstep must be taken with enormous caution not to crush what might be a one-inch stem barely visible above the carpet of moss. Yesterday, Team Biota (the three of us) took to the woods again. When we emerged, we had surpassed the 2016 record by four specimens. Twenty! Only a few stalks bore open flowers, but a few more days of warm weather will bring out the remainder. Team Biota's first day in the field also turned up a new site for our favourite Liverwort as well as a slime mold I've referred to an expert for identification.
UPDATE: Joe went back up alone today and found three more, two in new locations and one at a site where we hadn't seen any yet this year. Twenty-THREE!
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