Scotty Smith's Orchids of Colorado. - Southwest Colorado Wildflowers

Cypripedium fasciculatum Kell. ex S. Wats.Cypripedium fasciculatum, (sip-ri-pe‟-dee-um)+(fas-sik-yoo lah‟-tum) - from the Latin, means “gatheredinto a bundle” referring to the clustering of these flowers. Cypripedium is from the Greek words for“Aphrodite”, the Goddess of love and “foot”, and would closely translate as “Aphrodite‟s foot”Common names: Clustered lady‟s-slipper, Brownie lady‟s-slipperFlowering: from the middle of June into August.Description: A green stemmed, green leaved plant with a small pouched flower. The color of thisorchid ranges from green, or brown, to deep purple. The flower itself is not much bigger than onehalfinch in diameter and the plants growing not much taller than about 6 inches in height. Thisorchid plant is most often seen as single stem with sometimes up to 10 orchid flowers on the stem.Mostly those that you see only have 1-2 flowers per stem. This orchid does have the desire to formclumps of flowers. The orchid flowers have 3 sepals and 3 petals. One petal has formed itself intothe lip or pouch. This attractive landing platform is almost always covered up by the sepals andpetals as they form hoods over the lip or pouch. A pair of leaves sit opposed to each other at thebase of the plant. Not much more than an inch off of the pine needle mat. The leaves are mostlyround, but quickly coming to a point at the far ends of the leaf; flowering during the months ofJune, July and August.Habitat: Typically located in wetter, cooler, deeply shaded fir forests, sometimes in with sprucetrees and some juniper bushes. They grow solidly in pine needles and/or rotting leaf litter. Usuallyvery little undergrowth is found in areas where this orchid grows with little to no competition fornutrients. They grow between the elevations of 8,900 to 11,000 feet. This orchid is rare in Colorado.Care should be taken when around these orchids as they are only known from just a few locations. Itseems that most of these site have very few of these orchids per site.In Colorado we have this orchid growing in a few disjunct populations. I have seen this growingright next to four wheel drive roads. Amazing how Mother Nature places her rare plants.144