RON COLEMAN, PHOTOGRAPHER
Photo ©Gary Spicer
The Lady's Slippers (Cypripedium), with their unique flowers, are North America's most recognizable and charismatic orchids. Their flowers are distinguished by a lip modified into an inflated, slipper-shaped pouch that promotes cross-pollination by trapping insects. This pouch does not contain any reward for the pollinator, but relies on color and fragrance to trick an insect into entering in search of food.
In this gallery, orchid hunter Ron Coleman gives us a preview of his survey on the North American lady’s slippers, to be published later this spring in Orchids, the journal of the American Orchid Society. His article on the "Cypripedium of the United States and Canada" combines his field experiences with these orchids, and data gathered from many hours poring over herbarium specimens.
"I have been hunting the wild orchid for over 45 years. Although orchid hunters in the Southwest where I live see mostly little green things, the genus Cypripedium has been especially intriguing. Starting with C. montanum in Yosemite National Park in the early 1970s, I sought our Lady’s Slippers in much of the United States and Canada. The natural hybrids have been every bit as elusive as the species. The 2017 Native Orchid Conference meeting near Winnipeg, Manitoba, provided the opportunity to finally see and photograph C. candidum, a species that had eluded me for many years. After returning from the Conference, I realized the experiences and photographs from decades hunting Cypripedium were worth sharing. I trust you will enjoy them as much as I do."
Ron Coleman has been studying and photographing wild orchids throughout North America for over 40 years. The author of two books, The Wild Orchids of California (1995) and The Wild Orchids of Arizona and New Mexico (2002), he also co-wrote the treatment of orchids in the Arizona Rare Plant Field Guide and The Jepson Manual: Vascular Plants of California, second edition. His articles have appeared in the American Orchid Society Bulletin (now known as Orchids), The Orchid Digest, Fremontia, Selbyana, and Madroño. He has described two new orchid species and two other wild orchids are named after him.
To learn more about our native lady's slippers, visit Go Orchids and look for Ron's article on lady's slippers in the May issue of Orchids. And check out Ron's earlier gallery on the orchids of the rugged Southwest.
