Local populations consist of a few dozen to a few thousand plants. Not all plants flower each year and individuals rarely set seed. Plants grow in dry to moist conditions, but always in acidic soils of pine-oak forests. Plants grow, flower, and multiply best in early forest succession when gaps in the canopy allow light to reach the forest floor. Full sun is too intense for survival. As the canopy trees mature, pink lady-slippers are shaded and bloom less, since light limits the ability to produce enough energy reserves for flower production. If a canopy disturbance occurs, such as a major ice storm, increased light stimulates plant vigor. Although individual plants may have a lifespan of 100 years, flowering usually occurs only 10-20 times, and seeds are produced 2-5 times.
The lip of this mysterious looking flower is pink in colour with rose veining. A vertical slit on the front of the lip permits insect pollinators, usually bumblebees, to enter the flower structure. The inward folds of this slit, however, do not allow the bee to leave by the same route, but force it to crawl upwards towards two exits located on each side of the top of the lip. It is at this point that pollen picked up from a previous lady's slipper is rubbed off onto the female part and just as the bee crawls out of the slipper, a sticky packet of pollen adheres to its back, to be carried off to the next plant.
All Pictures here were taken in Raccoon Creek State Park in early June. In the summer of 2005 I counted 200+ blooming with at least that many more not blooming. In the same area I found the Whorled Pogonia.
