Platanthera cristata (Crested fringed orchid)

Recently, I made a day trip down to the Francis Marion National Forest which is located in Berkeley and Charleston Counties of South Carolina. It covers about 250,000 acres and contains some of the best longleaf pine forests in the southeast.

It is a prime location for native orchids, both terrestrial and epiphytic. My hope was to locate and photograph both Platanthera cristata and Epidendrum magnoliae -- two orchid species found along the Atlantic Coastal Plain.