There is a lovely colony of wild pink lady slippers (cypripedium acaule) near my house here in Nova Scotia. Unfortunately there is going to be a condo built on this location, and I fear that they will bulldoze the whole place. It is a magical little space that I will miss greatly. I am going to do everything I can to try to save some of these wild orchids. It seems that they aren’t protected here in Nova Scotia (regardless of what the wikipedia article says). I spent a couple of days calling around to various societies and departments to be sure of this. They are endangered in some places though, and it makes me wonder what the stat’s are about their local population.
This particular lady slipper is very sensitive and is nearly impossible to relocate. It’s roots are fragile and grow one to 2 feet underground. They are dependant on a symbiotic relationship with a fungus that lives underground and in it’s roots. Without the presence of this fungus it will die, it’s seeds also need this fungus to germinate. On top of this is needs a particular amount of light and shade, acidic soil and is often found on stone outcrops. People are often tempted to dig them up for their garden, but since they need the fungus they will most certainly die if they are moved. In places where they are in danger their major threats are habitat loss due to development and exploitation by people. These plants are so sensitive that if their blooming period is interupted, for example by picking them, they will not grow back. This is pretty horrible considering they take many years to mature and produce their first bloom. If you see them in the wild, please admire them, but do not pick them.
These plants also do not get fertilized easily, so they are slow to reproduce. They trick a bee into entering the labellum, then it must crawl out the top depositing the flower pollen on the bees back. There is no nectar inside, so bees rarely make the same mistake twice and climb in to another to fertilize another plant. You can even help out the orchids by carefully cross pollinating them by hand.
I called the group builing the condo today and left a voicemail. I can only hope that they will decide to keep some of them in their landscaping plans. I would think having rarish orchids on site would be very attractive to tenants, but as of right now they are planning on bulldozing it all. I also called HRM planning devision to try to find out what the status is on the application. No one picked up, so I left a message there too. I will keep you up to date on what’s going on.
