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Orchids are flowering plant rock stars, creating excitement whenever they appear on the scene. Most are eye-catching if not downright bizarre in appearance, and many are drop-dead gorgeous.
And there are so many of them, over 25,000 named species worldwide with many more awaiting discovery. Add to this the 100,000 hybrids and cultivars created by horticulturists and you’ve got the largest and most diverse group of plants by a wide margin.
The county is home to many outstanding orchids, including the fringed and fringeless orchids, pogonias, grass-pinks, showy orchis, twayblades, coralroots, ladies’ tresses, and rattlesnake plantains.
The most ostentatious are the slipper or moccasin orchids in the genus Cypripedium, with both the pink (C. acaule) and yellow (C. calceolus) species represented in the county. They aren’t especially common but we see them occasionally in bogs or dry acid pine woods in the mountains.
You probably won’t notice them unless they’re flowering, which takes place in May or June in mature plants. Not all plants flower, but when they do it’s truly stunning. The flowers form a striking slipper-shaped pouch that sticks out from the less showy petals and sepals behind. This pouch is fragrant and marked by nectar guides leading inward to a central groove.
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