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Cypripedium acaule Ait.
Perhaps a Lady Slipper, it has a beautiful large purple bulbous base (anyone know the name for this part of plant anatomy?) and green and purple veined petals.
Sandy soil on the a mountain slope, Minnewaska State Park
Interesting fact: In order to survive and reproduce, pink lady's slipper interacts with a fungus in the soil from the Rhizoctonia genus. Generally, orchid seeds do not have food supplies inside them like most other kinds of seeds. Pink lady’s slipper seeds require threads of the fungus to break open the seed and attach them to it. The fungus will pass on food and nutrients to the pink lady's slipper seed. When the lady’s slipper plant is older and producing most of its own nutrients, the fungus will extract nutrients from the orchid roots.
Spotted on Jun 1, 2011
Submitted on Jun 2, 2011
8 Comments
Thank you Alice, I saw two along my hike and felt quite lucky.
A stately picture, so perfect!
the actually 'ladyslipper' part is called the lip. in orchids, the lip is always different from the rest of the petals/sepals.
Ok! Thanks! Bonus round it to name that bulbous underbelly in the flowers anatomy.
I think Monkey-mind has it.
Pink ladyslipper it is - most likely: Cypripedium acaule
Thanks Dan, I'll peruse the web for a look-alike!
For sure a ladyslipper, try google images to look for a match of your species
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypripedium...