I’d heard about. I’ve even ready about it. But I was still completely surprised to be driving down a road and see the roadside exploding with beautiful ladyslipper orchids. In a portion of Northern Minnesota they grow as though a common weed. There were places these ordinarily rare hardy orchids would number in the hundreds. While these weren’t the orchids I was here to see, they were very impressive. The timing couldn’t have been better as they were in peak bloom. Having attempted on multiple occasions to grow this hardy orchid in my own yard without success, I now understood why I had such difficulties. They were never provided enough sunlight and water. With this newly understood knowledge, I’m ready to give it another try. It would be well worth it as beautiful as these orchids are. These conditions could never be duplicated in my yard so enjoying this environment was a must. I never got used to seeing these just growing by the roadside in many areas I traveled.

Often I stopped to get out and admire these beautiful plants and would notice other orchids mixed in with the Showy Ladyslippers. Occasionally the large yellow flowered cypripedium would be seen still in bloom. These usually are in flower a little earlier than the showy so I didn’t really expect to see them with such nice blooms and was pleasantly surprised from time to time. Another benefit of taking the time to walk along the road to inspect these wild orchids was to enjoy their subtle fragrance. I enjoy this nice, sweet scent but you have to get somewhat close to the flowers to smell it which can be an issue in their habitat. Often times they are growing in very wet places and this place has had above average rains at this point in the summer making it a bit more challenging to get near the blooms.

Slowly moving along the road, I caught the sight of another Cypripedium flower peaking out from the dense vegetation. It was the small yellow ladyslipper. Another orchid I expected to be done blooming by this time but here it was with some plants still in flower. Being certain this was a different species was a little challenging as it didn’t appear there was much difference between the large and small yellow ladyslipper. Coloration, size of bloom, and the tendrils provided hints that this was a third hardy orchid to be seen on this adventure. It was all so fun to find and worth battling the thousands of mosquitoes that also thrive in such habitat. While I was enjoying these ladyslippers, these were all orchids I’ve seen before and weren’t adding new ones to my list of Minnesota hardy orchids found. My count was still at 1 for this year.

While driving to another area where more types of native orchids were supposed to be growing, I came across a variation of the Showy Ladyslipper I haven’t seen before. An all white form. It was a matter of luck since it blended in so well with the numerous other Showy’s growing along the road while driving by. It didn’t add any new orchids to my list but was still fun to see. Unfortunately there was an area of loose dirt nearby which I suspect was someone digging out and poaching one of these more unusual protected orchids. They can be found for sale at several orchid growers which is the legal method of obtaining hardy orchids. The morning was beginning to turn towards noon and I had not seen any new orchids yet but what a nice start to my native orchid hunting adventure.