Daily Archives: May 28, 2020

Lady Slipper Orchid

I had begun to think the only Lady Slipper Orchids I would find this spring are the ones out by Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains…which are atypical in that they grow in the open shade of big pine right on the edge of the pond…not in the deep forest where they are normally found. My forest site for Lady Slipper Orchids, at the Rachel Carson Headquarters, where I have photographed them every year for going on 25 years, is closed due to the pandemic this year, so I was stuck. Then I remembered seeing a few along the trial into Alwive Pond, on the Alwive Reserve of the Kennebunk Land Trust several springs ago. I have not been back out there in season since. Land Trust trails are open, though proper social distancing is required. I rode out there yesterday on my eBike and found that there were indeed lots of Lady Slippers, the first before you even get to the parking area, and then in clusters of single plants all along the first mile of the trail, with a few even further in. There was even one large clump with multiple blossoms…the way they grow at Rachel Carson. Lady Slipper Mission accomplished. (There is, of course, a poem to go with this, which you can see at https://day-poems.tumblr.com/post/619357400179277824/528-i-will-admit-i-might-have-gotten-lady-slipper)