northern small yellow ladyslipper in eames fen

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Joined
Jan 22, 2008
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elmer, nj
Hello again,
I went to a fen near McLean, NY to try and find some white adder's mouth which morris and eames wrote in the late '20's that it was occasional to common; not common now I guess as I still haven't seen a whole plant where it is supposed to grow. Did find one broken off and laying in a mud pit years ago.
We did find some old standard yellow ladyslippers, and after searching and finding a few beaten up northern small yellow ladyslippers (cyp parviflorum var. makasin) I found two plants in decent shape next to each other. I also found a turkey hen who was quite upset at my being there and over a dozen fuzzy chicks were running in circles for a while....

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these were in the driest spot I had seen makasin in this location (meaning they were in wet soil covered with moss instead of right out of the black muck)

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habitat view which is standard look of the fen which has many pocket fens and seeps

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closeup trying to show the color inside the lip and the rim. makasin is supposed to also be different from the other two varieties in that the color is composed of many tiny dots instead of blotches that run together. I haven't tried to get close enough to see if this is the case, but the color does look spotty to me rather than streaky

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back view showing the color on the inside of the lip

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the northern small yellows do have a non-fuzzy leaf behind the flower as opposed to the southern small and standard variety which are fuzzy. from what i've seen personally, the sepals are usually very regularly twisty to the same degree through a population, there is much less green plant material than of the standard variety, and though there is a small flower it is usually on a plant that is over a foot tall. It does have a nice, 'rose-like' fragrance, which is different than that of the southern small yellows we saw recently which had a fragrance I couldn't place..... sort of different. the makasin flowers red coloration can also be sort of chocolate-red in tone which is a bit darker than the red of the other varieties. these two flowers were a bit darker than others I had seen at times
 
New York, of course.

i've been going through my threads; two good ones! ;)

it's near cortland, ny; middle of the state

eric, the orchid season lasts until the last killing frost, but don't wait that long... in about two weeks there should be showy ladyslippers, and if you like really obscure things (and like to battle deerflies and mosquitos) there is a rare plant listera convallarioides up on the tug hill, but requires a tough hike through fallen cedars and mud and all that
 

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