Lady’s Slippers
It was just over 40 years ago, June 1980, my first year in the Ozarks. I was beginning to make friends with Arkansas botanists. One botanical friend with whom I went with on searches for rare plants was the late Richard H. Davis (1946-1983).
Richard was a field ecologist for the Nature Conservancy under contract with the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission. He was particularly interested in rediscovering old locations for rare plants recorded on herbarium specimens, but not seen in their native habitats for decades.
One excursion took us to an historic location for the most southwestern known population of showy lady’s slipper Cypripedium reginae in Stone County. And we found it!
The showy lady’s slipper is the largest and most impressive North American orchid, growing up to 3 feet tall, with gorgeous 3-inch-wide flowers, whitish to translucent reds on the pinkish side. It is Minnesota’s state flower. It’s one among three species of lady’s slippers found in Arkansas.
For those out hiking now in deep forest, you may just get lucky and see one of our yellow lady’s slippers. We have two species with two varieties —the large yellow lady’s slipper (Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens) and the small yellow lady’s slipper (C. parviflorum var. parviflorum), two varieties of one species. Both are spectacular finds this time of year.
If you see them, leave them alone. They don’t transplant well, and the seeds are like dust, entirely obligate to threads of underground fungi for the first few years of life.
The seedling lady’s slippers are basically a white mass of cells totally dependent upon soil micorrhiza for nutrients and “mothering” before it emerges as a green plant in three or four years.
Arkansas is also home to another yellow lady’s slipper the so-called Kentucky lady’s slipper, also known as the ivory lady-slipper, or purloined slipper (Cypripedium kentukiense). It was described as new to science in 1981. This beauty grows in rich woods from Virginia to Georgia, west to Texas and eastern Oklahoma. About half of the 150+ populations are found in Arkansas, mostly in the southern Ozarks and Ouachitas.
As of six or seven years ago, no populations of yellow lady’s slippers are officially recorded for Carroll County, which is why we should keep looking for them. They are in surrounding counties. They must be here.
If you find one, only take a photo.