Description
SHOWY LADY’S-SLIPPER
SHOWY LADY’S-SLIPPER (Cypripedium reginae) DESCRIPTION GOES HERE (see Associates below)
HABIT
Showy lady’s slipper is the largest of North American Cypripedium species. Plants two-to-three feet in height or more are not uncommon. The slipper is white with a wash of rose-pink (rarely pure white – see var. albolabium) and the petals are white and untwisted.
NATURAL HABITAT
Showy lady’s-slipper is classified as FACW+. In the wild, it is found in circumneutral bogs, fens, seeps, and other springy places generally in the open. Homoya (Orchids of Indiana, 1993) has this to say about the species preferred habitat in the Lower Great Lakes: “The principal habitat of Cypripedium reginae in Indiana is best defined by the effect it has on one visiting it: up to your knees (maybe higher!) in muck.”
ETYMOLOGY
Cypripedium comes from the Greek word Cypris, the goddess of love and beauty, and the Latin word pedis, for foot. reginae is a reference to the species’ common name queen’s lady’s-slipper or regal lady’s-slipper.
RANGE
Showy lady’s-slipper is primarily a norther species. Its range extends from Atlantic Canada and western Ontario, south through the lower Great Lakes and into the Appalachians.
ASSOCIATES
Symphyotrichum puniceus (swamp aster), Pedicularis lanceolata (swamp betony), Rhus vernix (poison sumac), Solidago patula (bog goldenrod), Thelypteris palustris (marsh fern)
NOTES
NOTES GO HERE
