Lady Slipper Orchids
Every spring I look forward to the appearance of Lady Slipper orchids in the forest by my studio, bright pinks flashing in the dappled woodland shadows. Each year there are dozens of blossoms in patches under oak, dogwood and maple trees. The majority of the native wildflowers were always here but I have transplanted a few plants that were in a high-traffic footpath. Each small clump or patch of flowers is familiar as are the handful of unusually pale flowers (that get darker pink as they mature).
As members of the orchid family, lady-slippers have a unique dependence on the oak leaves in which they usually grow. Not the leaves themselves, but the fungus hyphae that permeate the leaves, turning them into peat on the forest floor. Lifting a layer of damp leaves will reveal a white lacy webbing. This is the actual plant or hyphae of which mushrooms are the fruiting body. This hyphae grows through the leaf layers, breaking down the organic matter and turning it to humus that is the spongy soil of a forest. In late summer, the hyphae will grow mushrooms to send out more spores, to grow more hyphae.
Lady-slippers have a close and necessary (symbiotic) relationship to the mushrooms. All orchids have immature seeds. Most seeds have a tiny plant embryo with food for its development. The seeds of the lady-slipper are more simple. Under the microscope a seed looks like a football shaped netting holding a single round center inside. The seed must be ‘infected’ by a friendly (non-pathogenic) fungus hyphae in order to germinate. The fungus continues to act as a digestive system assimilating food materials for the orchid, and in return receiving food from the flower.
This interrelationship between fungus and flower is the reason that these fragile ladies do not transplant easily. The new home would have to guarantee the same exact fungus for the flower to survive.
Very rarely do the plants survive being transplanted from their native space to another area because the new home must have that precise strain of fungi in the soil. I am able to transplant plants to my area because the flowers are already growing here. If you see these flowers in the forest please do not pick or disturb them and never attempt to dig them up!
The bright golden prothonotary warblers are back for their spring visit. One colorful male sat on a branch near the birdhouse and sang with operatic gusto on a sunny afternoon.
He stopped by and stuck his head in as if to check on the babies while mother warbler was out for some lunch. The chickadee didn’t stay long but soon flitted on his way.
