Wild Orchids Forever First Class Postage Stamps

Nine orchid species that grow wild in North America, photographed by James A. Fowler, with Ethel Kessler as art director: Cypripedium californicum, Hexalectris spicata, Cypripedium reginae, Spiranthes odorata, Triphora trianthophoros, Platanthera grandiflora, Cyrtopodium polyphyllum, Calopogon tuberosus and Platanthera leucophaea. The booklet runs ten designs across twenty stamps, with Triphora trianthophoros also on the cover. The Postal Service dedicated them in 2020 at the American Orchid Society library in Coral Gables.

Most people picture orchids as a supermarket plant in a plastic pot. These are the native ones - bog orchids, lady's slippers, plants that need a specific soil fungus and will not transplant. Several are threatened. Orchid societies and native plant groups buy these for newsletters and membership mail; everyone else uses them for wedding and thank-you correspondence, where a photographed flower reads better than an illustrated one. Booklets of 20.