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Whoops, thanks for the catch. I switched service providers a couple years ago and had to register a new domain name. It should be fixed now.

Most of our Spiranthes are pretty widespread, but we've got a couple that have pretty distinct preferences. Spiranthes laciniata is a rare plant that lives in acidic Pinelands savannahs, while Spiranthes lucida is a northern species that prefers calcareous wetlands. When I think about...

I've been editing photos and planning this year's hiking trips while staring out of the window at all that soul-crushing snow that this interminable winter just dumped on us a few days ago. I live in the middle of the state, so it's just as easy for me to get down into the Pinelands as it is...

You guys are finding some fantastic Platanthera! I've seen some white ones this year, but no orange. This one's not a Pinelands species (it was a lucky find in Morris county yesterday), but I think you'll appreciate it:

Here's something you don't see every day: In person, it had snow white petals and just the slightest blush of pink elsewhere. The digital picture really brought out the color; it's tough to take good pictures of light things in direct sun.

I've got a question for you guys: When you find Isotria verticillata, what kind of habitat does it grow in, and what other things does it grow with? It's supposed to be widespread in the state, but Paul Martin Brown's book not-so-helpfully says the habitat is deciduous forest, sometimes...

Wow, you guys are having all the luck with Spiranthes, those are some fantastic pictures! A friend and I hiked nearly eight miles today, and we didn't see a single one. It's tough hunting these needles in haystacks; in previous years I've found S. laciniata, S. lucida (in northern NJ), and of...

The grass is always greener, indeed. I guess part of why I like southern NJ so much is that it seems less disrupted by development than the northern part of the state. Brown's book on orchids of the northeastern US mentions a lot of species in the northern part that probably aren't even there...

Oji, I got lucky this weekend; I guess I'm making up for so many weeks this year of not finding anything of note. My orchid book suggests fifty-someodd species for NJ, but sometimes I wonder if the real number is closer to 40. I guess it's tough to tell, when you're looking for tiny needles...

They just might be; there were along a roadside in the village. I've seen them growing wild in Wharton, and all over the place up north where it's wet and a little sunny.

Guy, Thanks! I was lucky that the most photogenic plants were well-protected from the breeze by nearby bushes, so I could get some good macro shots without them bouncing all over the place. I didn't have so much luck with P. blephariglottis, as it tended to be out in the open and waving in...

After all the hot weather we had this summer, I thought that I'd have to nix the trips I'd planned to the Pinelands, but the past several days have been fantastic. I had an amazing trip yesterday with a friend of mine, and wanted to share some of the things we saw. We started out in Bryne...

After a month of poking around in the top half of the state, I got back down into the Pine Barrens last Saturday. We were hiking in Wharton State Forest along the Mullica and Batsto rivers; I was hoping to catch some Platanthera in bloom. We found a few Platanthera cristata, but they were past...

Got the tip from Google. It turned up this: http://www.bgci.org/usa/news/0192/ I spent a few evenings a while back Googling various orchids in New Jersey. I keep the results in a spreadsheet and use it to plan my hikes. Once I start to get a feel for what a particular plant's habitat looks...

The irony of that entire trip was that I was bummed out for half a week afterward because I didn't find what I set out there to look for (Cleistes divaricata), and I had to head home before I'd looked at even half the areas I'd planned on because the combination of exertion and heat was tearing...

I'd say it was right around four feet long. I was walking along a sand road in an open area, and it was heading the same way just off the road. I had my long macro lens on the camera and didn't have enough time to try to backpedal to get the whole critter in the frame before it got to the...

Here's a few more pictures, from a trip to the Franklin Parker Preserve last Sunday: Lance-leaved rose gentian (Sabatia difformis) Common water lily (Nymphaea odorata) Cross-leaved milkwort (Polygala cruciata) Coastal false asphodel (Tofieldia racemosa) Red milkweed...

On the hardware side of things, you need to get your camera to shoot raw images. Most of the time, you can fiddle around in the menu to get it to do that. I have mine store both raw and jpeg, as the latter are a lot easier to browse when I'm home to find the best shots. You'll need a big...

Part of it might be a difference in the auto white balance; the 5DmkII does a much, much better job of reproducing colors than my old Nikon Coolpix 5700 did. I used to get markedly brown or blue images from the old camera. Another possibility is that I've been shooting raw images (rather than...

It's one of the open areas along the side of the Oswego River in Wharton State Forest.