Day 258: About a year and a half ago, Park Plant Ecologist Arnie Peterson gave me a challenge: every week, I was to find a new plant (i.e., a species occurring in a previously unrecorded location). By the time last August rolled around, Team Biota (Joe and Sharon Dreimiller and I) had given him enough to fill out the remainder of the year. The challenge resumed this spring, and we're already ahead of schedule.
Arnie decided to up the stakes during the winter. He had received a photo from a botanist friend who had discovered a single specimen of Cephalanthera austiniae in 2005. Despite his long career in the field, Arnie has never seen a Phantom Orchid in the wild. He had been given vague coordinates by the friend and supplied us with a rough estimate of where the 2005 sighting had taken place, a circle roughly a tenth of a mile in diameter, off trail and into tangled forest. After our other duties were done for the day, Joe and I decided to give it a try even though we felt we were a month too early. Thus the saga begins.
My thought process after clambering over several large fallen trees, wiping spiderwebs from my face (they're sharp when they get in your eyes), and following a number of false leads ran along these lines: "That's another white stick...the ground cover is so thick in here you couldn't find an elephant...licheny bit...stick, yeah, another white stick...stick? Waitaminit, that doesn't look like a stick. That doesn't look AT ALL like a stick!"
Then as I got a clearer view, I said very loudly, thoroughly at a loss for any other words, "Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, SHIT! Joe! Joe! Joe! Shit! Oh, Joe!" to which Joe responded, "Are you all right?" I said through copious tears flowing down my cheeks, speaking rather breathlessly and not solely due to exertion, "Joe...I've got the plant!"
"What?" said Joe from 75 feet away. By then, I was crying so hard I could barely speak, "I've...got...the...PLANT!" and I knelt down beside it to pay homage. I heard Joe say, "There's another one behind you!" There was another one five feet away. Neither displayed open flowers, but we had found them, one of Mount Rainier National Park's rarest species.
I tried radioing Maureen, our contact. No response. It registered with me that I had never gotten Arnie's radio number, so I did the next best thing. I called Dispatch. "Dispatch, 442. Please call Arnie Peterson and ask him to contact me by radio." Dispatch replied, "Stand by." Less than a minute later, Arnie's voice came over the air: "442?" "Arnie, Joe and I are kneeling beside two Phantoms," I responded. Short and to the point, he replied, "GPS and photos. Check in with me later." I already had my GPS on the ground, averaging a reading.
For the most part, my photos were poor due to lack of light except for this one, but in any event, a return trip is in order next week to see if the flowers have opened. Our retreat was made somewhat easier by following a distinctive geographic feature, eliminating some of the route-finding hazards we encountered on the way in. Still, you don't want to get into a patch of Devil's Club, and even more to the point, you don't want to grab its stalks to pull yourself uphill. Nor do you want to exhaust yourself by repeatedly heaving your body over the jackstraws of blowdown. That particular exercise gets old really fast.
Some time later, we attained the truck and made our way to Longmire. As we were leaving Arnie's office after showing him the results of our search, I reminded him of the challenge he'd given us. His comment: "It'll be hard to beat this one." I've promised to guide him to the site if he can free up the time. Those herbarium specimens he was cataloguing will keep. The Phantom won't.
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