Pink Ladies

No not these gals –

These gals –

Pink Lady’s Slipper! The latin name is Cypripedium acaule which apparently is a bad Latinization of Greek cypris/kypris and podion/pedium/pedilum meaning Venus Slipper.

After finding only the odd seed pod in the fall and winter, I finally learned where they grow in profusion. Plus, it’s not far from the house and on the Ice Age Trail of all places. Because I don’t hike much at all once the bugs come, I’ve never found them like this –

So I went out with the friend who told me about them and had a little fun with some backlighting. Was glad it had been very dry because they were growing in a bog. You know how much I love a bog so it was fun despite how buggy it was. Doused in Deet and having donned a mosquito net over my hat, I tried my best with this special flower. You can see one of my nemesis mosquitoes in this shot –

While taking all these photos, I didn’t see any pollinators and wondered about that. Seems these, like other orchids, have a complex and somewhat fraught relationship with their pollinators which are mostly bumblebees – probably Queens. It takes a big bee to get through the petals and so little ones can’t accomplish that feat. But once a bee makes it inside, she’s trapped there to a certain extent. She can’t go out the way she came and must force her way through an opening in the back of the flower instead. When she does, she rubs up against the reproductive parts of the plant and can spread the pollen of another Lady’s Slipper. And if that wasn’t bad enough, there is no nectar for her to eat as a reward. None. Zip. Zilch. Cheapskate flower! Bees hate this and eventually learn to avoid them altogether.

This leads to low pollination rates because they become dependent on young, inexperienced bees who don’t fall for the deception long. But if a few unlucky bees get the job done, a pod develops with thousands of extremely tiny seeds inside. The complications aren’t over though. The seeds need a specific type of fungus (Rhizoctonia) in order to absorb nutrients from the soil. No fungi, no new Lady Slipper. This relationship is more of equals though since the plant pays the fungi with carbohydrates during their lives together.

This is only part of the baby issues this plant faces. We typically only think of animals as having to take years to mature to the age where they can reproduce, but Cypripedium acaule takes up to 10 years before making its first flower. Even the two beautiful and slightly fuzzy leaves take a few years to form after germination. Mostly the plant is spending energy creating its true stem; an underground structure called a rhizome. From this rhizome come the leaves (two) and the scape which supports a single flower. Each flower has basically one petal that forms the hollow pouch and is rolled inwards – this is what traps the bees, and two more that curl beside it and hang down. Above and projecting over the main blossom is a sepal.

They really are wonderful to see – especially in profusion which I haven’t seen in a long time. Not since I was in northern New Hampshire many years ago. I did see them in smaller amounts near where I lived in that state though, so they haven’t been very rare. Maybe I can brave the bugs in future and visit them again.

It wasn’t the earliest part of their blooming period and some were on their way out. I particularly liked this one that was faded, but still holding most of its shape.

And here’s something I found later and in a different location to where all of these were –

I think it’s a seed pod at the beginning of its cycle, but I’m not sure since most of the time these have remnants of the flower attached to the front end. This one doesn’t now and doesn’t look like it ever had one, but who knows. Maybe it’s a bud from a later blooming specimen. There were 4 or 5 in a tight area, but only this one had a scape rising from between the two leaves. It doesn’t look like a bud though so I think it’s a seed pod which is cool if this plant has reached reproductive age. I will keep an eye on this little group of them in the future so we will see!

Now if I could only find some of our other amazing orchids.

---

This next photo was taken much later in New Hampshire when I went back for a visit. This is how seed pods normally look when they’re first developed –

Eventually it will lose the green freshness and become brown and brittle so it can split open and the seeds will drop down and be part of the growing patch of Pink Ladies.