Lady's Slipper Orchid

Cypripedium calceolus

About

Grows up to 30cm high and produces a single flower per plant in May/June with three twisted purple tepals above a yellow slipper-shaped pouch that gives the flower its name. These pouches attract bees which once inside, can only exit through a narrow opening and, in doing so, collect and deposit pollen, ensuring pollination. However, they can also reproduce asexually as they have underground branching stems that can produce a clone of the parent plant. It can take nine years for a seedling to flower and they can live for upwards of 30 years, some are known to be over 100 years old.

It is one of the rarest plant species in the UK as there is only one wild native site in the country which is in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It was once widespread across limestone areas in Northern England, but uprooting by gardeners and botanists as well as changes in land management of its preferred habitat meant that it was almost completely wiped out. Today reintroduction projects are slowly increasing the population in the wild. The sites have to be guarded or caged though, as illegal collection of wild orchids is still an issue.

Conservation status

Cypripedium calceolus is one of the most threatened orchid species in Europe. Listed as Critically Endangered on the GB Red List.

Lady’s Slipper Orchid

No common-or-garden vaudeville: venus to virgin, sandal to slipper –
the name-change, over the centuries, a new guise as if to cover its tracks –
a species not to be shoehorned, evading taxonomists’ notions of purity and pleasure.
Every spring from the rhizome bursts golden and brimstone diva.
Total androgyny grown by tubers, aka testes, and still evolving its lure –
a nectar-scented deception to trap footloose insects and ensure germination:
see them tumble in pollen and bumble out over the yellow scuff greedy for more goodness.
What is freely given can’t be stolen. Humans hoarded a more secret fetish,
this orchid on every collector’s wishlist. Dug from verge, bog tussock, or the shady wood –
as it grew rarer, so it was prized dearer. A slip – a slither – a slide into extinction
until, deep in the dales, one last specimen. Risen from the cinders. A twist in the tale –
glass slipper won from an older sister. Encore! It’s close to midnight.
Cut the buds to conceal the location, cage wildness for its own protection,
send seeds away for propagation. Hasten to preserve this incarnation.

Lady's Slipper OrchidNancy Campbell

00:00 / 02:07

Length: 126 seconds
Poem: Nancy Campbell
Read by: Nancy Campbell

Sculpture

The sculpture was inspired by the caged plants at Malham Tarn. It was modelled in wax and cast into bronze, then inset into a painted wooden box.

The painting includes text from a few sources:

Firstly I used Nancy's first draft of the poem (kindly provided by Nancy) which was in five sections which have been spaced out across the piece.

In 1958, at the height of the concerns over the future of this orchid surviving in the wild, Dr Sledge decided to collect the flower heads at the last known wild plant to prevent collectors from identifying the site and uprooting the only remaining specimens. This flower, collected in 1958 is now in the Sledge Herbarium at Cliffe Castle Museum, and has over the course of the last 60 years been the source of much controversy. I used the label from the herbarium sheet by Dr W.A. Sledge from when he collected this orchid (used with the kind permission of Bradford District Museums and Galleries). More details on this can be found here.

All of the text used has been partially obscured. I also used the outline of the plant from the herbarium sheet as a stencil, painting the surrounding area but leaving an empty outline of the plant. Both referencing the hidden nature of this elusive plant and what has been lost.