Goodbye to May

“In June,” Aldo Leopold wrote “as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.” That’s certainly true here in southern New Hampshire. Late in May or early in June is when many of our most beautiful wildflowers start to bloom, and one of the most beautiful is the pink lady’s slipper orchid (Cypripedium acaule) seen here. I find the plant in the woods in sandy soil, almost always near white pines. For those who haven’t seen one, a pink lady’s slipper blossom is essentially a pouch called a labellum, which is a modified petal. The pouch has a slit down the middle which can be seen in this photo. Veins on the pouch attract bumblebees and point the way to the slit where they can enter. On this day in fact I saw a big bumblebee flying from flower to flower. This was a first for me. For centuries this plant has also been known as the moccasin flower, possibly because the Native American Ojibway tribe…