Yadon's piperia is a rare, endangered wild orchid from coastal northern Monterey County, California, growing from underground tubers and sending up a single flower spike. It is not a typical garden or houseplant, and it is protected, so it should be left in the wild.
Family
Orchidaceae (Orchid family)
Grows as
Bulb, Orchid
Light
Part shade
Water
Grows from tubers that lie dormant in dry years; it depends on natural rainfall and soil fungi, not regular watering.
Soil
Sandy, well-drained coastal soils under pine forest or coastal scrub.
How easy
Hard
Native range
W. California (Monterey Bay area)
Climate
temperate
About
Platanthera yadonii, also known as Yadon's piperia or Yadon's rein orchid, is an endangered orchid endemic to a narrow range of coastal habitat in northern Monterey County, California. In 1998 this plant was designated as an endangered species by the United States government, the major threat to its survival being continuing land development from an expanding human population and associated habitat loss. One of the habitats of Yadon's piperia, the Del Monte Forest near Monterey, California, is the subject of a federal lawsuit, based upon endangerment of this organism along with several other endangered species.
This wildflower may lie dormant in a given year and not emerge above the soil surface from its tuberous substructure. After leafing out in the spring, it will produce flowers on erect spikes, each flower possessing both green and white petals.
Where it grows
Yadon's piperia is confined to a handful of locations in the coastal area of north Monterey County primarily the Del Monte Forest on the Monterey Peninsula. Tiny populations have been found in the Prunedale Hills; and an isolated southernmost population on Rocky Creek Ridge (Cushing Mountain) at Big Sur. Specific places of occurrence within those areas are the S.F.B. Morse Botanical Reserve; Manzanita County Park; and the Nature Conservancy’s Blohm Ranch Nature Preserve. Each colony is rather small in patch size, measured on the order of twenty acres or less. All of the occurrences are below about 250 meters above mean sea level and all are within six miles of the Pacific Ocean.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Platanthera yadonii by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.