It was one of those glorious spring days that we only get a few of in east Texas. A passing cold front left us with a sunrise low of 44F, but the sun shone bright to warm the day and melt away the straggling fog from overnight. And, it backlit every fresh green leaf in the forest canopy above us against that sweet bluebird sky.
It was a perfect day for searching the back woods looking for Cypripedium kentuckiense, the Kentucky lady’s slipper orchid.
This fascinating and long sought after native plant had been on my wish list to see for sometime as it is endangered in Texas. Cypripedium species have faced several trials in recent years. Over digging is one. Peter Loos told me that in some parts of the south, they used to celebrate Easter by digging clumps from the woods. Climate change is also impacting populations. Very likely, Cypripedium kentuckiense is a glacial relic from when the southeast was much cooler. And, habitat destruction has also killed off plants. These three reasons (and pests like deer!) have led to a drastic drop in numbers for many species in this genera. Some colleagues told me that there’s likely 100 Kentucky lady’s slipper orchids left in the state.
HOOARY, Cypripedium kentuckiense!!! Life list plant, check!
After making our way through forests that more closely resembled Appalachia than the pineywoods, we found four clumps at two separate locations. Three plants were in flower, and two plants had more than three flowers. Nearby were indicator species like broad beech fern (Phegopteris hexagonoptera) and wild comfrey (Cynoglossum virginianum). Adam Black noted that a colleague said that you can always find a Cypripedium at the drip line of a dogwood (Cornus florida). Both heavier flowering clumps were right under one. Correlation or causation, you decide.
A bit of lady’s slipper anatomy. Four greenish-yellow with maroon striped leaf-like appendages appear at the base of the slipper. The larger two at the 12 and 6 o’clock positions are part of the sepals, the protective and sometimes showy floral whorl that occurs below the petals. The two twisted ones at the 3 and 9 o’clock position are actually petals and with the slipper petal make up the corolla.
At a different location, we found a much more yellow form of Cypripedium kentuckiense.
After photographing the plant from several angles, we actually did some controlled cross pollinations on the plants. In talking with Peter Zale of Longwood Gardens, he states that fruit often don’t form on these few and far between individuals. The reason isn’t totally known, but it is possible that the pollinator isn’t present or because the plants are so isolated they may have trouble attracting the correct pollinators. This video shows typically how a European species would be pollinated via insects.
One flower we found on the ground, damaged within the past day or two from a cut worm or some other dastardly insect. We used the fallen to better understand the flowers. The structure in the middle of the image that looks like an ear is where the sticky pollen is housed, the pollinium. Each flower has two pollinia. The white structure to its right is the stigma.
We placed pollinia (right above the tweezers) from the broken flower onto stigmas of viable flowers. Why let them go to waste? You can see another pollinium outlined in maroon in the upper left.
We helped the plants along in their pollination by placing pollinia onto the stigmas. I hope with these small helpful actions, seed will form and Cypripedium kentuckiense will live on longer in east Texas, to help make our woods here a little richer so that others on glorious spring days may find these enchanting plants like we did.