On Saturday, I went to what was listed as a Bird watching field trip at Cedar Ridge Preserve. However, when I arrived, I discovered that the schedule was in error; it was actually a “plant walk” to go see some rare orchids. Well, plants are cool too, and I didn’t have anything else planned that morning, so I decided to stick around. Dr. Marcy Brown lead the group to an area of the trail about a mile away from the entrance to look at a Hexalectris grandiflora. Until this year, the only known location of these orchids in the United States was in the Big Bend area of southern Texas. But now, specimens have been discovered at two sites in Dallas County, and I got to see one of them. It’s kinda fun being among the few people that know that the distribution map from that last link is wrong. :-)

As Dr. Brown explained, the tricky thing about this kind of orchid is that it cannot be grown in “captivity” because of its relationship with a special kind of fungus in the ground. Most orchids need a fungus to help them start growing because orchid seeds are relatively small and don’t contain very many nutrients. The type of fungus to orchid species relationship is almost one to one, with most orchids requiring a unique kind of fungus. This makes cultivating orchids very difficult because not only do soil and lighting conditions have to be just right, the correct kind of fungus has to already exist in the soil before the seeds will do anything at all.

Usually, once the orchid has started growing, it ends its dependency on the fungus and starts using photosynthesis to obtain the carbon it needs to grown. Hexalectrics grandiflora is somewhat unique in that it continues the fungal relationship and (as far as we know) never uses photosynthesis. That’s why there are no leaves or other green parts to this orchid.

I took a few more Hexalectris grandiflora pictures. I wish I knew more about photographing plants up close, but I think they turned out alright.

We also saw some Hexalectris warnockii on a different trail. These were more plentiful, but not as pretty to look at. They had bloomed earlier and were now just purplish colored stems coming out of the ground.

After our orchid adventures, we walked around the garden near the entrance of the preserve. Several of the people that had come for the plant walk were from the Garland Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas. I asked them a few questions about some of the plants in the garden, and soon they were rattling off all sorts of long, complicated-sounding names that I’d never heard before.

Soon it was time to leave for the next event of the day: an organ demonstration and a tour of the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. I met Pony, Crystal, and Liz (who was driving her shiny new Chevy Cobalt) at Schmorgan’s house, and then the five of us headed toward downtown Dallas where we met Bungee, Esther, and Tim.

Organ demonstrations are held periodically at the Meyerson, but usually they are only on weekdays. Because of the City Arts Celebration, they scheduled two for this Saturday, which made things much more convenient for us. After a short introduction by one of the Meyerson staff, Mary Preston started playing. I had heard about the acoustic qualities of the McDermott concert hall and the Lay Family Concert Organ, but to experience them in person is really something. The hall completely envelopes the listener in the sounds of the powerful organ and allows each of the 4,535 pipes their own acoustic texture and placement. Having grown up listening to the electronic organ at church (which really isn’t half bad), it was a joy to hear the sound of real pipes and to hear how some of the stops are actually supposed to sound. Listening to the world-renowned Preston play also confirmed something I’d long suspected: my mom is a pretty good organist.

After the organ demo, we were lead on a rushed tour through some of the rest of the building. The guide suggested coming back some other time when there wasn’t as much going on for a better tour. I think I’ll try to do that before the summer is over.

We then wandered around the West End for a while and ate at The Spaghetti Warehouse. Following dinner, Bungee went into “tour guide mode” and showed us all the sites of historical significance relating to the Kennedy assassination. I’d seen the memorial and the Sixth Floor Museum before, but I’d never really gotten a good look at the notorious “grassy knoll,” so that was interesting.

I’m not used to living in a city with so many interesting things to see and do whenever I want to. Talking to members of the local Native Plant Society about some rare orchids in the morning followed by an organ demonstration in one of the best concert halls in the world in the afternoon is just not something that you can do in a small town. I like it here.