CHEERIO FOR THE LADY SLIPPER

Fellow bog-trotter and Scouting colleague Mike L. recently sent a hearty "cheerio" of thanks for our small contributions to "...another great Camp School in the ancient Adirondacks" last summer. In a day and age of email splerbs and abbreviated tweets, the fact that friend Mike had sent an real note card with sepia-toned sailboats on the front and actual handwritten sentiments on the inside was duly noted and greatly appreciated. Evan the "forever" stamp of Alan Shepard: First American in Space affixed to the upper right corner of the envelope lent a (ahem) "note" of importance to his efforts to say a personal thank you.

But it was his return address of "24 Lady Slipper Lane" on the back of the envelope that caught my eye. It reminded me that one of my reoccurring pleasures of working the Adirondack National Camp School each year is that I often get to see one of my favorite Eastern Woodlands wildflowers, the Pink Lady Slipper, in full flower.

"One true-born blossom, native to our skies.
We dare not claim as kin,
Nor frankly seek, for all that is in it lies.
The Indian's moccasin."
---Elaine Goodall, 1904

Cypripedium acale is the Pink Lady Slipper or Pink Moccasin Flower, a large and richly colored wild orchid of conspicuous beauty, greatly enhanced by the charm of its Adirondack surroundings. The first fresh sight of it is always something of a event for me; I always feel as if I had forgotten from last year just how bright and stately a flower it was. Frank Morris in his classic Our Wild Orchids describes this annual (if we are lucky) encounter this way:

"Perhaps you have just entered some shadowy grove of evergreens, and there suddenly you come on a little group of them near the base of an old hemlock, their drooping pink heads flushed with a stray sunbeam, or drowsing in the twilight. Amid such scenes no flower could "ever fade into the light of common day."

A little botany here, again from Frank Morris:

"The Pink Lady Slipper plant consists of a short underground stem, from which springs a pair of large oval leaves, and between them a tall stout naked stalk surmounted by the flower. The two leaves are thick and strongly ribbed, silvery underneath, shining dark green above and slightly sticky with short hairs; in the young plant they form a enclosing vase to protect the blossom, but later they relax and acquire a more spreading habit. The scape is course fibered and a little ungainly in appearance. The sepals and side petals of the flower are greenish brown in color and somewhat narrow.

"The "slipper" or pouch is very large, far the largest of the "Lady-slipper" family. This bulbous flower droops almost vertically from the point of attachment, and is cleft down the middle the full length of the upper side. In fashioning this little shoe the sides are curled up from the sole in the usual way, but where drawn over to meet above the instep their edges, instead of being welded together, are softly folded in, leaving two steep ridges that run from top to toe with a deep cleft between them. The color is a very delicate pink, overlaid with a network of rich rose-red veins."

The Pink Moccasin is different in its habitat from all the other wild orchids, even from the other lady slipper orchids; it likes plenty of elbow room, and instead of being massed in dense clumps prefers to spread loosely over wide areas. At Massawepie Scout Reservation, where BSA National Camp School is taught, it ranges through the hummocky understory of spruce and hemlock that surrounds the lakes and bogs. It is strongly acid-loving and can make its home on the shallow leached soils or almost anywhere those conditions are met. I have found it growing in the damp sphaggy boglands along the trails, on granite slopes, and on the sandy glacier-piles of the higher elevations.

It is partial to the shade of evergreens and if left undisturbed multiplies often into large colonies about the scattered hobble-bush and striped goosefoot maple of the underbrush; such colonies are usually transient and can be shaded out by the shrubs, at first a protection, later smother the Moccasins.

Pink lady's slippers will not grow in the home garden when dug out of their natural environment for transplanting. (All native orchids in New York are protected and should not be picked, harvested or transplanted.) The orchid will only grow in a soil that has a specialized rhizoctonia fungus present. Most home gardens will not have this fungus present and you cannot take enough soil from around the plant to give the orchid a viable growing environment.

Some people harvest the pink lady's slipper for use as a sedative, according to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Other uses of the plant are as a cure for insomnia and nerve medicine, due to the sedative qualities. The pink lady's slipper orchid has hair on the leaves and stems. Some people have an allergic reaction when touching the stems or leaves. The symptoms of an allergic reaction include itchy skin and a poison-ivy type rash.

If you have the luck, as we have had, to visit the Adirondacks in an exceptional season, when the two ends of June meet together in a riot of summer splendor, you will enjoy a very rare sight: the blooming of the Lady Slipper is a sight not to be missed!