Plenty of flowers are in bloom during the long warm days of June. However, instead of the woodland wild flowers of May, those that add color to these hot days are mostly in the open.
It is now that the fields and roadsides come alive with colors. Yellows of buttercup and yellow hawkweeds mix with the orange hawkweeds and red clovers to make the green fields sparkle. Roadsides also abound with whites of daisy and false Solomon-seal. The most obvious plant out in June is probably the lupine. Growing in groups, each one puts up a spike of colored blossoms. Purple is the norm, but blue, pink and white may be here too. It is hard to keep eyes on the road when we pass such a growth.
But maybe the most delightful flower in bloom now is a bit harder to find. Showy ladyslipper orchid, the state flower of Minnesota, is now adding its pink-and-white charm to roadside swamps and wet woods.
Most common in the northern part of the state, this large two- to three-foot orchid is not even seen by many, or most, of the residents of this state. Those who do trudge into these damp sites and put up with the local mosquitoes will find the experience of seeing showy ladyslippers in bloom is worth the walk.
Like their cousins, the pink ladyslippers (moccasin flowers) and the yellow ladyslippers, the showies have a flower of two parts. The bottom is fused petals that form a hollow ball-shaped growth. This spherical part is pink. Above this is the white portion that fans out in three more normal petals. Stems are long and leafy unlike the basal leaves of the pink ladyslipper orchids and more like the yellow ladyslippers.
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In true orchid fashion, the roots grow in a mycorrhizal relationship with soil fungi. This relationship appears to be rather fragile, making them hard to successfully transplant. Added to this is the fact that showy ladyslippers grow very slowly. Plants take nearly 20 years to reach maturity and put forth blossoms. Some years, perhaps too dry, they may not bloom at all.
Our state flower will continue to bloom for a week or two, reaching into July, but will eventually fade with the heat of summer. Flowers catch the attention of large bees that subsequently pollinate and, by late next month, seed pods will replace these two-tone blossoms.
Late June, with its heat and annoying insects, may not seem like the best time for a walk. But for those visiting a growth of showy ladyslippers, it is an adventure.
Larry Weber is the author of the "Backyard Almanac." He teaches natural science at Duluth Marshall school.
