Calypso and White Ladyslipper

[Rick Baetsen]

Bonnie and I continued our wildflower foray last weekend, which took us from Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore to the Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park. Rains washed out our outing and hike on Saturday but we did have a nice time at Bond Falls in Ontonagon County with high water flow on the way west and got to see a Gray Wolf along M-38 highway at the base of the Keweenaw Peninsula west of Baraga.

On Friday, we searched a site and found a lot of Ram's Head Ladyslippers opening up and several of them were the white form. Another site we searched for the very rare Calypso Ladyslipper. For the third year in a row I got lucky and found one. But only one at a site that used to hold dozens of them.

On our way south on Sunday we stopped by the Pine River site in Chippewa County where we found the opening white form of the Stemless or Pink Ladyslipper the previous Thursday. It was now fully open and pure white. It was hard to get any crisp images as the wind was blowing a flower on a thin stem and it was rare to get an image without mosquitos in the image. The pink ladyslipper is also called the Stemless as the leaves, not the flower come out of the ground without a stem.

A few images of these flowers attached.

Rick Baetsen

[Dale]

Wonderful pictures Rick. Having just left the U.P. I fully understand the issue of having
mosquitoes in the photos!

Dale

[SandyLee]

Lovely Rick!

[MikeW]

Really nice shots Rick..

[Joe Green]

Spectacular orchid!

[Rick Baetsen]

Thanks for the Comments All.
Rick

[PHILSFOTOS1]

Beauties rick...nice work!!!