. LADY’S SLIPPERS
The slipper orchid flowers arrive at the climax of the spring wildflower season, and finding a colony of any of our three common species is a special occasion for most of us. Lady’s slippers all belong to the genus Cypripedium, which, through a convoluted etymology, refers to the foot of the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. ‘Lady’ was a broader concept in those days than today.
We tend to think of the lady’s slippers as being rare, even endangered, but they are pretty common in the Northern Rivers area if you know where to look for them. An exception is the fourth local species, the ram’s head lady’s slipper, which I’ve never found here, although I’ve been told where it supposedly occurs.
The species most likely to be found on a woods walk is the pink lady’s slipper, sometimes called moccasin flower (C. acaulis—without a stem, referring to the single flower stalk), which, unlike the other species, is often seen outside wetlands. It is generally found growing in very acid soils, especially where conifer needles filter down, but where the shade isn’t too deep. For some reason, pink lady’s slippers seem to like human contact; they’re often most abundant along well-traveled pathways. Every spring we have 50 or 60 showing up in the proximity of our camp on Wolcott Pond; a clump appeared a few years ago in our lawn and is carefully mowed around—and never limed or fertilized. Generally, trying to move pink lady’s slippers results in failure, so it’s best to enjoy them where they choose to emerge on their own.
Yellow lady’s slippers (C. parviforum—small flowered) are more likely to show up in rich, moist deciduous woods, and especially in marshy areas. They like soils that are close to neutral pH, and they often are found in marly areas, and where there are outcrops of limestone or other carbonate rich rocks. In contrast to the pink species, yellow lady’s slippers are easy to grow in garden soil and do well with a bit of fertilizer. Clumps can last for decades and slowly expand to provide dozens of buttercup yellow flowers. Needless to say, they shouldn’t be collected in the wild except to save them from construction or logging, or perhaps sparingly from large colonies.
Showy lady’s slippers (C. reginae—of the queen) are usually found in rich fens and marshes. They is quite common—if you know where to look for them—in the floors of the several narrow valleys that traverse our area from north to south. You’ll usually need mud boots to visit the sites, and a knowledgeable guide helps. There’s one station in our area about 50 feet from a road and on dry land, and some of you are probably familiar with it. Showys flower a week or two later than the others, and often have two large flowers on a single stem reaching above knee height. They also are easy to grow—you can buy the plants in a nursery. In a decade or two, in a good rich soil with plenty of compost and maybe a little fertilizer, you can have a clump the size of a wheelbarrow, with a hundred flowers. That’s nice, but it doesn’t compare with the pleasure of slogging through wet grass and brush, and fighting off blackflies and mosquitos to find a stand the plants growing in a spot they’ve decided on, with the flowers seeming to glow almost with a light of their own, especially if you arrive in evening light.
