Lady’s-slippers

Wild orchids have fascinated me for 50 years give or take. Wild orchids, not the delicate hybrid orchids of the sort that are sold in florists’ shops and super markets.

The wild orchids of the northeast range widely in color and size, some are plain green while others are brightly colored. Among the largest and most colorful, and my favorite wild orchids, are the lady’s-slippers. Here in the northeast we have but six species, only three of which grow in Pennsylvania.

The most common lady’s-slipper here is the pink lady’s-slipper or moccasin flower that prefers acid soil, which we have in abundance. Like all wild orchids, this species is dependent on a mycorrhizal fungus growing on its roots to acquire nutrients from the soil.

In June of 1978 I found a colony of thousands of these orchids in bloom in a red pine plantation.

As many times as I’ve returned to that site, which has since been logged, there have never been more than a dozen plants in bloom –

Many years ago in central Maine we came across a colony of pink lady’s-slippers with white flowers – what a find –

Much less common and essentially confined to rich soils is the yellow lady’s-slipper –

At one time I knew of three locations in our county where yellow lady’s-slippers grew. White-tailed deer browsed two of those colonies into oblivion while the third has been greatly reduced by browsing combined with shading by Japanese barberry.

The only other lady’s-slipper to be found in Pennsylvania is the rare showy lady’s-slipper that grows in alkaline fens in the far northwestern part of the state. The showy lady’s-slipper is both the largest and most colorful of our lady's-slippers –

In 1978 The Naturalists journeyed north into New York to a limestone fen where we photographed several small white lady’s-slippers. The small white lady’s-slipper inhabits the same fens as the diminutive rattlesnake known as the massasauga and another rare orchid, the arethusa.

Several years ago I returned to that fen in hopes of getting some more photos of small white lady’s-slippers. My hopes were dashed when I couldn’t find a single plant although they apparently still grow there.

Two other very rare lady's-slippers are found in the northeast that do not grow in Pennsylvania one of which I photographed a long way from home in Grand Teton National Park, courtesy of a friend who worked there. However, this orchid does grow in New York and New England; it’s the calypso or fairy slipper –

The remaining northeastern lady's-slipper is one that's extremely rare and I’ve never seen, the ram’s-head lady's-slipper.

There are other species of lady’s-slippers found in the U.S. but these are the only ones native to the northeast. All lady’s-slippers are beautiful, some are endangered and most of the rest are declining due to unscrupulous collecting, browsing by deer, habitat loss and a changing climate.