White Ladyslippers

There she is..... one of that special breed of native orchids. This is Cypripedium candidum - the white ladyslipper. Discovered in 1805, it ranged from New England to the Dakotas. Now, due to habitat destruction and thoughtless "collecting", it is extirpated in much of the East and very rare in the upper Midwest. It was found in wet meadows and prairie sites. Draining and plowing plus intensive pasturing did them in...

I was on a hike to a protected native prairie site just south of Bluff County. It was over the border in Iowa. The time was early summer. The site encompasses about 500 acres. It reportedly has never been tilled. After taking a some shots of shooting stars, I continued down the path until I saw another clump of white. I was completly surprised to find a small mound of some kind of native orchids. At that moment, I was unaware that these small plants even existed. I took a few pictures and then hurried home to check out my Moyle wildflower book. It was then that I found out how rare they really were. A few weeks later, I was watching the evening weather report. Mr Weatherman mentioned he was inviting people to send in pictures of their garden each week and that there was a prize to be won. I couldn't claim the garden where I'd spotted the unusual orchids, so I identified the flowers as being in "Mother Nature's Garden." Knowing the looting that sometime takes place with these kind of rare specimens, I stated they wre located somewhere near Bluff Country. Later, when several neighbors called me up to inform me that my picture had made the evening news on Channel Ten, I was astonished again. I give all the credit to these beautiful gems and the gift certificate award was well spent at a local nursery in Rochester. Sometimes you just got to be lucky...