Saturday, February 21, 2009

Both Lady's-slippers orchids




Back in May of 2006 the Carolina Butterfly Society had a western NC field trip to look for rare mountain butterflies. These kind of trips always bring in nature people with all kinds of interests. A lot of us also know birds, botany and dragonflies.

Luck would have it a local naturalist lead us to see both types of Yellow Lady's-slippers orchids . We found Greater Yellow Lady's-slipper (Cypripedium calceolus var. pubescens) and the Small Yellow Lady's Slipper (Cypripedium parviflorum var. parviflorum).

Anyway these flowers took beautiful photos in the moist slopes where we found them.

Today I was stumbing through the White Flower Farm catalogue and saw they were selling Yellow Lady's Slippers for $115 a plant! I'd hope that with these kind of prices that our rare mountain plants will remain in unnamed locations. We found just a few plants and they were so remarkable.

For those that would want to know the camera info on these photos. The top photo was taken with a DSLR Canon 20D and the bottom was taken with a point and shoot Nikon Coolpix 8700.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very pretty photos. I saw a dragonfly stained glass window today that sure was pretty!

Anonymous said...

So beautiful, I just love Lady Slipper!

Heather said...

Thanks for the great photo. I have never actually seen a lady slipper although I have heard of them. Beautiful. Thanks for the head's up on my comment section not working. It worked for a gal right after you but not for one in the morning hours before you. I am still investigating.
-Heather

Heather said...

Thanks for the great photo. I have never actually seen a lady slipper although I have heard of them. Beautiful. Thanks for the head's up on my comment section not working. It worked for a gal right after you but not for one in the morning hours before you. I am still investigating.
-Heather

Jan said...

I haven't seen a lady slipper until now, either...only in pictures. Well, yours is a picture too...but it seems so real. Anyway, thanks for your camera info. I have a Nikon D40X and use a 300mm lens, a shorter 70mm lens that came w/it, and a 105 mm. macro lens that I just received and haven't used yet. What do you think of that strength for the macro? My husband just got it and is giving it to me for my birthday which is in a little over a week.

Kylee Baumle said...

Randy, I think I would be beside myself if I ever saw one of these in the wild. Absolutely breathtaking!