Home › Contents › Yellow Lady's Slipper. Whip-Poor-Will's Shoe

Yellow Lady's Slipper. Whip-Poor-Will's Shoe

Cypripedium pubescens. Orchis Family.

Stem.--About two feet high; downy; leafy to the top; one to three flowered. Leaves.--Alternate; broadly oval; many-nerved and plaited. Flower.--Large; the pale yellow lip an inflated pouch; the two lateral petals long and narrow; wavy-twisted; brownish.

The yellow lady's slipper usually blossoms in May or June, a few days later than its pink sister, C. acaule. Regarding its favorite haunts. Mr. Baldwin (Orchids of New England.) says: "Its preference is for maples, beeches, and particularly butternuts, and for sloping or hilly ground, and I always look with glad suspicion at a knoll covered with ferns, cohoshes, and trilliums, expecting to see a clump of this plant among them. Its sentinel-like habit of choosing `sightly places' leads it to venture well up on mountain sides." The long, wavy, brownish petals give the flower an alert, startled look when surprised in its lonely hiding-places.

C. parviflorum, the small yellow lady's slipper, differs from C. pubescens in the superior richness of its color as well as in its size. It also has the charm of fragrance.