Slipper orchid in situ as orchid fanciers like to say. Pink lady slipper, Cypripedium acaule.

Mocassin flower (Cypripedium acaule) in an eastern Canadian soft wood fores

Showy Lady’s Slipper Cypripedium reginae Orchidaceae

Photographs taken on June 18, 2023, at Purdon Conservation Area, Lanark Highlands, Ontario, Canada.

n820_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz.. Gera,Zezschwitz,1903-. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/12306754

Black ash, tulip poplar, eastern white cedar swamp.

acidic duff, acidic glacial gravel deposits, lay atop the ancient marl beds of this mound fen. Boreal treasures find this as refuge as the flora dictates the transition from marl flats and sedge meadows to the swampy forests. Prairie dock, fen indian plantain, and temporary saplings hide away what can be compared to candy for deer; these are also found in risen patches in the sedge meadow and with close proximity to a bit more shade like whats associated with shrubby cinque foil or the the ninebark thickets.

Cypripedium reginae

Showy lady Slipper

Cypripedium californicum

Cypripedium parviflorum var. makasin

Beaver Creek, SK, Canada. June 17, 2022.

January Thaw Walk-About

January Thaw Walk-About: The weather's been crazy, to put it mildly. With this second, post-Christmas thaw the snow is mostly gone. Monday it almost reached 50°F and it wasn't raining, so I decided to walk around the garden and check on things.

The weather’s been crazy, to put it mildly. I know most of the country has endured similar: a thaw the week before Christmas, a sudden drop to unseasonably frigid temperatures, and (once everyone’s holiday plans were screwed up) a return to unseasonably warm temperatures. I was thankful that we didn’t lose our snow cover during the first thaw, so that the plants did have some protection when the…

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The red spruce forest straddling the spine of Spruce Mountain is truly an island in the sky - a bit of boreal forest stranded by the northward retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age. Red spruce forests once cloaked vast expanses of the higher elevations of the Central Appalachians but were largely logged out of existence by the early 20th Century. Today, the remnant forests are slowly making a comeback, although they will never be restored to their full historic range. We are fortunate to have them at all. A stroll through one of these high elevation forests is a surreal experience and reveals a surprising diversity of plants and animals, many uniquely adapted to live in the cool, acidic environment.

From top: Spring-fruiting Entoloma mushrooms, most likely Entoloma vernum,  saprophytes that decompose organic matter for food; minniebush (Rhododendron pilosum), a blueberry-like shrub of the Central Appalachians that’s genetically closer to a rhododendron; black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa), a small, suckering shrub with blackish-purple berries and crimson-red leaves in the fall; yellow clintonia (Clintonia borealis), or bluebead lily, whose iridescent blue berries have the sheen of fine porcelain; pink lady’s slipper orchid (Cypripedium acaule), which clumps gregariously in the heath thickets on top of the mountain; the drop-dead gorgeous fringed polygala (Polygala paucifolia), also known as gaywings and flowering wintergreen, which for all the world looks like a dainty orchid but is actually a milkwort (Polygalaceae); and that lovely dwarf  dogwood, bunchberry (Cornus canadensis), a perennial groundcover more at home in Maine and Nova Scotia than West Virginia.

Pink lady slippers, Cypripedium acaule. They’re even more interesting now that I have a few tropical slipper orchids!

I’ve taken so many pictures of native wildflowers in the last few weeks and posted very few. Just take my word for it: they’re still out there. 🌿🌸

Moccasin flower (Cypripedium calceolus)

Pink Lady’s Slipper Cypripedium acaule Orchidaceae

Photographs taken on June 20, 2023, at Petroglyphs Provincial Park, Woodview, Ontario, Canada.

n136_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: Flowers of mountain and plain /. New York :H.W. Wilson Co.,1920.. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40792119

Some pink lady’s slipper from a hike on 5/24/23.

lady's slipper orchids (cypripedium calceolus)