A rare orchid that gathers energy through parasitic fungi was discovered at Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms in Jefferson County this spring.

Botany Research Assistant My-Lan Le found the striped coralroot orchid in the Deer Creek Natural Area in April while documenting species for the annual City Nature Challenge, a global event encouraging people to catalog plants and animals where they live.

In a post for the Denver Botanic Gardens, Le said she found the orchid growing near a log under eastern cottonwoods, western chokecherries and snowberries.

A striped coralroot orchid has never been documented at Chatfield Farms, and the only other time a Jefferson County specimen was collected for a herbarium was in 1905, according to garden officials.

Striped coralroots are unique because they don’t gather energy from the sun through photosynthesis. Instead, they gather energy and nutrients through a parasitic fungus on the roots of a host plant, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

As a result, striped coralroots don’t have any green leaves, instead sending out stalks and flowers with colors ranging from white to ochre to dark fuschia.

Botanic Gardens staff returned to the area to collect a sample for the Kathryn Kalmbach Herbarium and found other striped coralroots in the area.

Since the April discovery, others have reported seeing coralroot orchids from Boulder to Pueblo counties, including in Bear Creek Lake Park and Chatfield State Park. The orchids are native to North America but usually grow in small numbers, according to the Denver Botanic Gardens.

The orchid collected from Chatfield Farms will be used for research, Le wrote.

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Originally Published: July 23, 2024 at 4:50 p.m.