The Most Wonderful Day!
I woke up early yesterday, knowing I had a long day of house building ahead of me, and went out to take a walk. I decided to walk around the land to places I hadn't gone before. So, down the hill I go into the rhododendron area thinking, "What am I going to find here? Nothing grows around the rhododendron." But then, the flora changed and the forest opened up and I saw her... Pink Lady Slipper (Cypripedium acaule)! Then... I saw another! And another! (I have never found more than 9 lady slippers at one site. She was severely over harvested in the 1900's for medicine, and has never recovered. She has a symbiotic relationship with the microbes in the soil and only grows in specific areas and it is extremely hard to transplant. So, I began bawling when my count got to over 160 lady slippers, and I decided to stop counting and just enjoy!! There were so many that I had to watch where I stepped so as not to step on them! I can't begin to explain the feeling I had yesterday morning walking on this amazing, sacred land in the Blue Ridge.
2 Comments:
At Saturday, 29 April, 2006, D L Ennis said…
What wonderful luck to find all of those Lady's Slippers! I was out taking photos of Pink Lady's Slippers today; we have a lot of them on our land too.
At Monday, 01 May, 2006, Anonymous said…
I haven't seen them yet around here. What a tremendous find! This has been a great wildflower season here in the Blue Ridge.
Thanks for sharing.
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