We returned to the hidden site of the elusive Yellow Lady's Slipper today, not to be disappointed. She showed her face, and her cousin was likewise more visible than last week--two orchids for the price of a short walk in the woods. What more could a naturalist ask? (Perhaps better focusing? Sorry!)
For those who are keeping tabs, this is Cypripedium calceolus.
And her more abundant relative, the Spotted Coralroot, Corallorhiza maculata, left. (No, I didn't key it out, so please consider this a "most likely" approximation, the next most likely being a rarer species.)Are we crazy, venturing abroad in search of the elusive Cypripedium? Let me offer this historical tidbit, at least 100 years old, I've no doubt. Enjoy this excerpt from a poem on the trials of field work by Henry Beers, Ye Laye of Ye Woodpeckore, in which the "Woodpeckore" and the "Pale Student" speak alternately:
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O whither goest thou, pale student
Within the wood so fur?
Art on the chokesome cherry bent?
Dost seek the chestnut burr?
Pale Student:
O it is not for the mellow chestnut
That I so far am come,
Nor yet for puckery cherries, but
For Cypripedium.
[nigh on 11 verses omitted]
Full two long hours I've searched about
And 't would in sooth be rum,
If I should now go back without
The Cypripedium.
Farewell! Farewell! But this I tell
To thee, thou pale student,
Ere dews have fell, thou'lt rue it well
That woodward thou didst went:
[3 more omitted]
The wood-peck turned to whet her beak,
The student heard her drum,
As through the wood he went to seek
The Cypripedium.
[2 more skipped]
The mud was on his shoon, and O!
The briar was in his thumb,
His staff was in his hand but no--
No Cypripedium.
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Nonsense? I think not! [Will provide the date, and a link to the full poem, as soon as I find it!]
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