What kind of slipper is this?

[cedarleaf]

Would appreciate help to i.d. this plant with the correct botannical name. They are growing in our open timber. Thanks!!!!

[Tigger]

You lucky so-and-so!

I imagine that's cyprepedium calceolus. Here's a pic from U Mo.

[Chris_W]

How beautiful, and how lucky you are to have them! I took a look at some other pictures and I think Tigger has it

Yup, we're all jealous of you

[pauhaus]

I second that! You are a lucky so and so I am very jealous.

[cedarleaf]

Thanks - With your help I was able to figure out they are the smaller variety, Cypripedium calceolus parviflorum, "Lesser Yellow Lady's Slipper". I hope they keep coming back! So many of our wildflowers show up for a few years than disappear.

[Old earth dog]

I don't know if it's fact or fiction but I've heard they are hard to transplant because of the need for certain microbes in the soil where they grow.

[viktoria]

Fact, more or less, OED.

[IBOY]

Cedarleaf,
IF you have a very heavy deer population, you might want to consider protecting your slippers with a little fence; the native orchids around here have been pretty much wiped out by a cruel double whammy; there is a lot of garlic mustard, which the deer won't touch; the mustard shades out the smaller orchids, and selectively puts even heavier foraging pressure on native wildflowers. The showy orchis and Cypripedium parviflorum have been decimated here; last spring we went up to White Pine Hollow in NE Iowa to see the Goodyeras (used to be thousands), and they are ALL gone, with lots of garlic mustard and deer trails.
Don

[cedarleaf]

Don,

Wow, thanks. Maybe that's why my entire patch of Showy Orchis disappeared. I dug up two last year and moved them closer to the house - they are the only two orchis that survived. I was terribly worried about transplanting them, but am very glad I did!

I will give my Lady Slippers a little squirt of Repellex.

[insam]

what a beautiful flower.

[IBOY]

This is a new slipper for me, Cyp. Gisela, a hybrid of parviflorum X macranthos. I haven't overwintered this one yet, but it's supposed to be hardy, and I have overwintered another member of this cross with no problem at all.

[Toadlover]

Ooh, I'm wiping off the drool now. I thought showy pinks were at the top of my list but that Gisella is something else.
Thanks for all the pictures- keep them coming.

[DryGulch]

I have been doing some research on the native orchis and deer may actually perform some of the same function the buffalo did before they were learly wiped out. They forage so tyhe orchids get enough light and there trampling brings the spore in contact with the proper substrates and microbials for germination.

The only native yellow, pink and showy orchids that I know of are on deer trails...

[DryGulch]

This is one of a colony of about 75 plants growing on a deer trail.

[IBOY]

Wow, those are healthy-looking reginae! As to the deer, I'm sure it depends on population density of the deer, and presence of garlic mustard. My take (non-scientific) is this: the deer population in Iowa 70 years ago was only 500-700 in the whole state of Iowa, and lady slippers and other wild orchids were fairly abundant. Now, the deer herd is 300,000, and wild orchids are essentially gone from the woodlands. My own personal woodland of 3 acres has 5 resident deer. One acre is fenced off, and showy orchis and Loessel's twayblade are common in that area, and absent in the unfenced area. Garlic mustard is an especially apalling part of the problem. It has totally taken over the woods in many parts of the country, including here, forming a choking monoculture on the forest floor, and the deer do foster its growth by trampling its seeds into the ground. Unfortunately the deer won't eat it, so they selectively browse the remaining native vegetation, to the point of extinction. Below shows what the forest floor looks like here with garlic mustard; these will grow to three foot tall by the summer, and choke out everything. Sad, and I sure don't have an answer.
Don

[IBOY]

On a lighter note, this is Cyp. andrewsii, a natural hybrid of parviflorum X candidum:

[ladyblue]

These slippers are so beautiful!!You're so lucky to have them.

I just wanted to say that the deer really love trillium too!!
They got every flower that was in bloom last week,in my yard!
Sheared off lots of hosta too. I was a little late with the Liquid Fence!!
Bonnie

[IBOY]

Got one more slipper that just opened up in the garden; this is Ulla Silkens, a cross of reginae X flavum. It seems a lot easier to grow than straight reginae.
Don

[Chris_W]

Last night the neighbors probably heard my screams when I spotted this growing here!

Haven't looked it up yet. There are several clumps growing down in the dry grassy area just above the bog. Brian and I were walking around there talking about mowing it soon, and there they were! They seem to be doing best where there is more open sunlight and disappear just as vegetation gets thicker. But just finding these small clumps is a marvel. My big concern, though, is wondering if we have killed any already as they are real close to a spot where we tilled our growing area, and if I saw the foliage and no flowers I never would have known what they were

[IBOY]

It looks like Cyp. kentuckiense to me.
Don