Last weekend, our intrepid perambulator Bill Holston did something. This week he goes in search of Hexalectris Warnockii.
The (Sorta) Orchid Thief
By Bill Holston
“Orchidelirium” was a name given by Victorians to the quest of collectors for illusive orchids. Orchids are lovely and unusual plants. This mania was described in the book The Orchid Thief, by Susan Orlean, later somewhat unsuccessfully turned into the film Adaptation. I suffered my own fit of Orchidelirium recently. Yes, I was on the hunt for Hexalectris Warnockii. Ahh, now I’ve got your attention. Nothing like some Latin to really get people enthusiastic about nature.
Once, in a trial, I responded to a Los Angeles lawyer’s quote of some obscure Latin phrase by using pig Latin. No, I did not win. But I digress. The use of Latin formal names is not designed to be smarty pants, but instead to be accurate, as there are multiple regional names for plants, and some of them are actually conflicting and misleading. According to the Houston Orchid Society, Hexalectris Warnockii is also called Texas Purple Spike and it is: “…. a saprophytic, maroon-colored plant which lives completely underground (calcareous soils, cedar-oak groves).”
Clear? Okay, so what does that mean? It means that this is a type of orchid that cannot create its own food, because it does not have chlorophyll. It must rely on microorganisms in the decaying matter of the soil or other organic materials in which it makes its home. The species was named for Dr. Barton Holland Warnock, a Texas botanist. Dr. Warnock belongs to a list of legendary Texas naturalists. He is best known for his work in Big Bend, and was a biology professor at Sul Ross University, in Alpine, for many years. A nature center in Lajitas is named after him. According to his nephew Kirby Warnock, Dr. Warnock had “hiked, drove and climbed over so much of the Big Bend that he was widely sought to locate specific places in this rugged terrain. He discovered dozens of unknown plants, cataloging them for posterity.” There are even 12 plants named after him, including the Hexalectris Warnockii. You may think of Orchids as the ones featured in The Orchid Thief, but those aren’t saprophytic, but instead are Epiphytes, which live on a host plant. I love that I’m headed to a local nature center to see a plant that is more common to Big Bend.
So, this past Saturday, my very best (okay only) hiking buddy, Scott Hudson, and I loaded up our day packs with water bottles and headed to our local version of the hill country at Cedar Ridge Preserve. Scott and I have been hiking together for over 30 years and hiking here since 1989 or so. About 20 years ago, we used to hike with diaper bags, though. The Preserve’s history is an interesting one. In 1976 , Geoffrey Brian Stanford, M.D. (1916-2000), founded the Greenhills Environmental Center, which in 1987 became the Dallas Nature Center. Eventually the Center began to be operated by the Audubon Society and changed the name to Cedar Ridge Preserve. At an elevation of over 700 feet, there are enough hills to give a walker a nice workout. It’s really my favorite place to hike in this area.
We were meeting Jim Varnum, intrepid guide to all things natural in North Texas. It was supposed to be hot, so Scott and I met at 7:00 to get a hike in before we did the orchid hunt. We started walking and catching up. We walk along, talking about what life is now like for us in our 50s. I guess what passes for wildness is now a hunt for native orchids. Honestly, I love sharing these walks with Scott, who is another life-long learner. As nice as it is to find some solitude in a quiet, secluded place, it’s great to share this with a friend of so many years and one who appreciates nature as much as I do.
We headed down to the Cattail Pond trail, where I’ve seen Painted Buntings (Passerina ciris) before. If you are even remotely inclined to go watch birds, this is the local one you want to see. It looks like a bird you’d expect to find in the Amazon, and it’s relatively easy to spot here, if you look for it. We hiked down the escarpment and then through the old Honey Mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) filled former pasture. Not much is blooming right now. It wasn’t long before I heard the distinctive and beautiful song of the Painted Bunting. The bird happily has a very identifiable song, and combines with the habit of perching on a taller tree and singing its little bird heart out. It’s colorful, beautiful and energetic. If one of my favorite local singers, Kristy Krueger, was a bird, she’d be a Painted Bunting. We walked off of the trail, and I saw it perched high in a Mesquite tree. It’s just such a colorful bird that it always gives me a thrill to see one. It took off before Scott got to view it in the binoculars.
We walked a few hundred yards more and I heard another one. This time, we got a lot closer and watched it singing in the top of the tree, its brilliant red, blue and yellow highlighted against a clear blue sky. As we walked, we were passed by several groups of Boy Scouts training for the Sangre de Cristos of Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. I was an Eagle Scout and still regret not going from my home in Mobile, but it was an expense that wasn’t in the cards when I was a young man. We also passed a young man who commented on my St. Louis University shirt, with the oddest mascot anywhere, the Billikin. My oldest son graduated from there. The guy was from St. Louis, and we talked about what a cool city it is. As I walked away, I said to Scott, “A hundred and twenty grand, and you can have a shirt just like it.”
We made our way past the pond and climbed back on top of the Escarpment. It was hot, but a nice breeze really kept our walk comfortable as we climbed a hill. The reason that we have some hill country in Dallas County is a result of the Austin Chalk geologic formation. After the Cretaceous Period (just before Scott and I started hiking together), the Austin Chalk tilted slightly, resulting in a dip to the due east. That Austin Chalk is the exposed white rock that you see in this area. It is made up of microscopic skeletons of microrganisms called Coccoliths. This tilted formation results in the hills that spring up as you approach Cedar Ridge Preserve from the West on I-20.
We climbed the hills, thankful that most of these trails are heavily wooded. The dominant trees are Ashe Juniper (Juniperus ashei) and Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana), but there is also the lovely Shin Oak (Quercus sinuata var. breviloba). These beautiful trees are white oaks and often grow in a sort of fairy circle of trees. They favor the Austin Chalk of the escarpment. We also see red oaks (Quercus shumardii). We made our way back to the parking lot to wait for Jim to take us on our look for orchids. We sat waiting to see if anyone else showed up for the hike, but, no, it was just the three of us.
We took off hiking. Jim pointed out the Hexalectris spicata, off of the trail in an undisclosed location. It was already past blooming. We walked farther and spotted the Hexalectris warnockii. They are difficult to see, because they are not showy or large plants, but they make up for it in intricate beauty. They live underground and just shoot up to bloom, disappearing for another year. Most were not blooming. In fact, we only found one that was blooming, but its beauty made the entire hike worth the effort. I’ve read that the Hexalectris warnockii grows in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona, the Big Bend Region of Texas, with a few examples in some isolated spots, so this was a real treat to see. I felt like I was seeing something special, something most people don’t take the time to notice. In fact, a few hours earlier, we’d walked right past them, without knowing they were there. You have to get down on the ground to see them. This Saturday, between the showy display of a painted bunting and the delicate beauty of these orchids, I felt like I’d uncovered a treasure, some of the subtle beauty of our North Texas areas. With a little shade and a lot of water, it was a great outing. I enjoyed seeing that single bloom as much as spending the day at an arboretum or formal garden.
We made our way back to the parking area. Scott had to leave for a family reunion. Jim and I walked along the edge of the Escarpment to find several examples of a type of Milkweed, Asclepias viridiflora, with its beautiful blooms, among bunches of little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), a native grass. As we were walking, I noticed a group of workers removing invasive plants in a field. One of them was my friend John Soto, from my Master Naturalist class. John is a schoolteacher in Oak Cliff, and he and his wife just had a baby. Here he is on his summer break fulfilling some of his 40 required volunteer hours to become a certified Master Naturalist. That’s the sort of program the Master Naturalist program is. Master Naturalists donate thousands of hours to our local parks and nature areas, saving taxpayers thousands of dollars. They also routinely appear at local nature events, serving as citizen teachers about the environment. I’ve just completed all of the requirements to become a Master Naturalist. It’s one of the most interesting and fulfilling things I’ve ever done. All of the classes were taught by experts, and it’s an extremely well-organized affair. Seeing John out there in the hot sun with a pick is also indicative of the sort of young people who are teaching our kids science. You’ll never catch me bashing teachers. They are heroes in my book.
I have to say Saturday wound up being darn close to a perfect day. I came home, showered to make sure that the chiggers would not find me an ideal host creature. Jill and I ended the day at the Kessler, seeing Junior Brown tear up the joint, with his combo electric guitar and steel guitar. When I fell into bed at 12:00, I fell to sleep and slept, completely relaxed. What a great view of our city from beginning to end.
