Week 24: Pink Lady's Slipper, Grace Graylock Niles, C.S. Young

Fig. 1. “The Pink Moccasin-Flower. (Cypripedium acaule.),” from Grace Greylock Niles, Bog-Trotting for Orchids (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1904), colored frontispiece.

Headnote#

Along the same walk that I first encountered the wool sower wasp, I found an old friend. No, not that type of old friend—just a flower I’ve come to know over the past nine or so years. It has a delicate yet visceral form, immediately striking and beautiful but a bit gory if you think about it for too long. It’s the type of plant that seems to have nearly universal appeal, spawning refined social and scientific clubs while also luring weirdos out into the woods. For independent botanist and artist Grace Greylock Niles, whose work and story are worth knowing, this flower took the front page of her best-known book, the marvelously titled Bog-Trotting for Orchids. And rumors are that it is illegal to pick or dig (in reality, that is only true on federal lands).

The pink lady’s slipper, or moccasin flower (Cypripedium acaule), is a perennial “slipper orchid” in the varied and cosmopolitan orchid family (Orchidaceae). Native to the eastern woodlands of North America, the plant requires specific conditions to grow and bloom, including acidic, well-drained soils: it often prefers gentle slopes in pine forests, where it can appear alone or in colonies. Like all orchids, the pink lady’s slipper also requires the presence of a specific mycorrhizal fungus in the soil, which breaks open and nourishes the otherwise helpless seed. The orchid acts in a slightly parasitic relationship with the fungus, using it as a surrogate root system to obtain water and nutrients from the soil. Because of these exacting requirements, a moccasin flower can take two years to establish a seedling and anywhere from 5 to 16 years to produce its first flower. However, once established, an individual plant can live for decades (some say a half century or more) and expand rhizomatically to form a colony of clones.

The species name, acaule (Latin for “stemless”), seems misleading because the flower very noticeably rises on a stalk; however, this stalk is technically a scape, rather than a stem, and carries no leaves. Instead, two broad basal leaves emerge directly from the ground, green and hairy above, grayer beneath, with conspicuously raised parallel veins. These leaves persist through summer long after the flower has gone to seed. The flower itself is a labellum (from the Latin for “little lip”), inflated and heavily veined, with two narrow, twisted petals extending outward to either side. The blossom lures bumblebees inward with a sweet fragrance, but offers no nectar; the bee enters through a slit in the pouch, works its way through the narrow interior passage, and exits bearing a load of pollen for which it received nothing in return—except, perhaps, the experience? The plant’s roots contain high concentrations of cypripedin (“American valerian”), especially in late fall and early spring, and were used historically as a light sedative or calming agent to support menstruation and alleviate headaches or insomnia. The substance is now being studied in relationship to cancers. But you probably shouldn’t dig up an orchid for your backyard science project, especially if it’s a pink lady’s slipper.

Fig. 2. “Cypripedium acaule,” from All of Nature’s Fashions in Lady’s Slippers for the Northern and Eastern Parts of the United States (Boston: Bradlee Whidden, 1885), n.p.

Readings#

1. Many people are accustomed to think of the orchid as a tropical flower which grows in our country only in cultivation and under highly artificial conditions. It is, however, true that many of the most attractive species of this beautiful group are endemic to most parts of the United States. There are to-day, accord- ing to conservative reports, from twenty-seven to thirty genera and from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and sixty species of native orchids found in North America, north of Mexico. Most of these are terrestrial or earth-loving. There are eleven epiphytes, all of which are found only in the Southern States. The range of the North American orchids extends wherever sunshine and moisture prevail, nearly as far north as the Arctic Circle. Four Cypripediums grow between latitudes 54° and 64°, and from fifteen to eighteen species of the Orchid Family are natives of Alaska.

   […]

   Two-Leaved Lady’s Slipper — Stemless Pink Moccasin-Flower

   The specific name, acaule, refers to the lowly and humble (acaulescent), growth of the species, since the flower is stemless, arising from a short or subterranean stem.

   Sphagnous bogland, conifer or mixed woodland orchid with fleshy-fibrous roots. May 19th-June 20th.

   Flowers large, pink-purple, solitary, terminal, stemless. Labellum shoe-shaped, 2-2 1/2 inches long, bi-lobed, pendulous, with closed fissure down its whole length, edges inflected, downy interiorly; pink-purple with darker veining of purple. (Rarely pure white flowers occur, with crome yellow sepals and petals.) Sepals and petals brown-purple and green, shorter than labellum; two lower sepals wholly united. Stem very short, obscured by the basal leaves. Scape naked, 8-18 inches high, single-flowered, terminal. Few instances where two flowers or buds in embryo have occurred. Leaves 2, sheathing the base of peduncle, oblanceolate 3-5 nerved, hirsute and thickened; 6-8 inches long, 2-3 inches wide, resembling the leaves of Orchis spedabilis Linnaeus.

   Continental Range — From Newfoundland, and Fort Franklin, in latitude 54°-64° North; southward to Lookout Mountain, Mentone, and Cullman, Alabama; westward to northern Indiana, Minnesota, and Kentucky.

   New England Range — Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont, abundant; Massachusetts, abundant; Rhode Island, common; Connecticut, common.

Grace Greylock Niles. Bog-Trotting for Orchids (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1904), p. vi, 147.#

2. C'est une belle espèce qui pousse court; elle est originaire de l'Amérique du nord. Elle est bien distincte. Les fleurs sont très grandes; elles ont 5 cent . et plus de longueur, et sortent de feuilles larges, opposées, ovales, poilues, supportées sur des tiges de 15 centimètres de hauteur. Les fleurs sont de couleurvariable; elles sont ordinairement d'un beau rose, quelquefois ombré de blanc. C'est un des genres que l'on cultive le plus facilement en bordure ou dans une partie ombrée sur un rocher. Fleurit en juin.

F. Desbois. “Cypripedium De Plein Terre.” Monographie de Cypripedium (Gand [Ghent]: Librairie Générale de Ad. Hoste, 1888), p. 26.#

3. To the unscientific lover of flowers the name Lady’s Slipper brings up a delightful vision of a quaint rose-colored flower, with an airy balloon-like pouch. This is the C. acaule, or Pink Lady’s Slipper, the most common of all the varieties. Rising erect and graceful on its slender stalk, it may be found in dry or moist woods in May and June.

   Elaine Goodale speaks of it as “ shy and proud,” and it is not as difficult to realize that this Slipper and the spectabile are related to the curious tropical varieties we see exhibited as rarities, as their more modest-appearing sisters.

   The flower stem with the flower is from ten to fifteen inches high and springs directly from between the two large ribbed oval, lanceolate root leaves. The other Lady’s Slippers, as can be seen from the illustration, have stem leaves.

   Somehow, to me, this large, pink blossom, nodding brightly in every breeze, has a happier appearance than any of the others; and although the Showy is undoubtedly the handsomest, I love the Pink Lady’s Slipper best.

C.S. Young. “Fashion Five. Cypripedium acaule Stemless Lady’s Slipper.” All of Nature's Fashions in Lady's Slippers for the Northern and Eastern Parts of the United States (Boston: Bradlee Whidden, 1885), n.p.#

Supplementum#

• “Pink Lady Slipper Fact Sheet.” Signs of the Seasons: A New England Phenology Program. The University of Maine Cooperative Extension.

• Kristen Goodhue, “Medicine, Myth and the Lady’s Slipper Orchid.” Shorelines: Life and science at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (August 7, 2015).

• Grace [Greylock] Niles, “The Origin of Plant Names.” The Plant World 5.8 (1902): 141–44.

• Grace Greylock Niles, The Hoosac Valley: Its Legends and Its Stories (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1912).

• Henry Baldwin, The Orchids of New England: A Popular Monograph (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1894).

Fig. 3. “The Pink Moccasin-Flower - The Stemless Lady’s Slipper,” from Grace Graylock Niles, Bog-Trotting for Orchids, p. 247.