Yellow and Pink Lady’s-slipper Orchids in the DuPont State Forest, Transylvania County, North Carolina — 2013-05-15

About this time last year, a good friend, Kelvin Taylor, and his cousin Cathy Howell led me to a location in Transylvania County, North Carolina, where a fair number of Lady’s-slipper orchids can be found in season. Both Yellow Lady’s-slippers and Pink Lady’s-slippers grow side-by-side. The area, Fawn Lake Access, is part of a larger holding called DuPont State Recreational Forest. It is just east of the small town of Cedar Mountain, North Carolina.

So, on the morning of May 15, my partner, Walter Ezell, and I drove up to the Fawn Lake Access of DuPont State Forest, retrieved our camera gear from the truck and headed up the trail to see if we could find some photographable plants of Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens, Yellow Lady’s-slipper orchid and Cypripedium acaule, Pink Lady’s-slipper orchid:

The beginning of the trail winds fairly steeply up the mountain from the parking lot. After about fifteen minutes, we reached a spot near the top of the ridge where, ten days ago, we had seen Yellow Lady’s-slippers and Pink Lady’s-slippers growing virtually side-by-side next to the trail. To me, this is a very unusual circumstance since these two species generally require quite different soil types. However, plants seldom acknowledge botanical text books, and so here they were. A long time ago, I remember someone saying, “Orchids are where you find them…”.

In any case, we were expecting to see the orchids in full bloom, since I had inspected a couple of plants about ten days prior to today’s trip, and I figured that ten days would be enough time to allow the flowers to fully develop. However, I was shocked to find the Yellow Lady’s-slipper plants missing! There were a number of clumps of Pink Lady’s-slipper plants coming into peak bloom, but no Yellow Lady’s-slippers. Bummer!

At the point on the trail where these particular plants are found, someone had tied a length of “Caution” tape (similar to what the police use to deny access to an ongoing investigation) onto one of the limbs of a small pine tree, presumably to mark the spot where the orchids were growing. What I found near where the Yellow Lady’s-slipper plants had been was a single sedge that had apparently been browsed by deer:

Now, whether the deer had browsed the orchids into oblivion (they have been known to do exactly that), or whether someone had poached the plants, I suppose I will never know, but I truly hope that it was the action of deer rather than the action of a misguided orchid thief that removed the plants.

On a previous trip, Kelvin had pointed out some additional clumps of Yellow Lady’s-slipper orchids nearby but considerably off the trail, so we headed to that spot, hoping that they were still there. Walter and I did find about seven plants in bloom — one clump of three and several single plants:

Although the flowers were a bit small for this species, they all had the characteristically twisted, greenish petals and sepals. After spending some time photographing and studying this population, we proceeded up the trail to a location where I hoped there would be additional orchids of both species in bloom.

Several different trail junctions and one hour later, we reached the spot. We finally made it to a large, bowl-shaped ravine whose sides were carpeted with a number of different species of ferns. One in particular caught my attention, since although it is not rare, it is infrequently seen in this far south. It is Adiantum pedatum or Northern Maidenhair fern:

In among the ferns, we spotted several clumps of Yellow Lady’s-slipper orchids. These were quite nice, especially since the closest population of these orchids to my home is a dozen miles south of this spot, but it requires a grueling hike to reach them. In addition, there are only four or five plants at that site. Today, in the DuPont State Forest, they were in perfect bloom, and so we attended to the task of recording their beauty:

There were a number of single plants in flower nearby, and a few pairs of plants:

However, one flower in particular, caught my eye because it appeared to have some debris on the top of the lip. Upon closer inspection, the debris turned out to be a couple of insects in rapturous, end-to-end, copulation:

Another flower appeared to have a hole in the side of its lip, but the effect was actually caused by the sun shining at an angle through the natural opening in the top of the lip:

Not all of the Yellow Lady’s-slipper orchids were in full bloom. There were a few which were either still in tight bud or just a day or so away from being in full flower:

Above the slope, we found many Pink Lady’s-slipper orchids in every state of bloom from tight buds to fully open flowers. Apparently at this location, the Pink Lady’s-slipper orchids generally open a week or so after the Yellow Lady’s-slipper orchids:

In addition, down in the lower and wetter portions of the ravine, we found a number of Galearis spectabilis or Showy Orchis:

Here and there were also large numbers of Iris cristata or Dwarf Crested Iris:

But, the stars of the show had to be the Yellow and Pink Lady’s-slipper orchids. It’s not often that one gets to see such beauty in nature — and not that far from home. Except for the missing Yellow Lady’s-slipper orchid plants at the first stop on our hike, this was a perfect day for photography and for enjoying nature…

— Jim