It was the Saturday of Mother’s Day weekend and I was visiting my parents to celebrate the big day. I had arrived on Friday afternoon, gone out for a wonderful dinner and returned to the old homestead where, for some reason, we all decided to stay up and watch NHL hockey. The game went into overtime, the team I was rooting for lost, and I ended up going to bed way too late. Thus, it was at 7 a.m. the next morning that my alarm went off and I once again questioned the decisions that I sometimes make.

Why was I up so early? Well, Merry Cushing, my good friend and birding companion, had solid information on the location of a patch of yellow lady’s slippers (Cypripedium parviflorum) and this was something that I simply couldn’t pass up. The pink lady’s slipper (C. acaule) alone is worth the effort to see, but the yellow is a real treasure simply because it is so rare. Well, I should probably say that it has been rare for me. If successful, this trip up into the woods would mark only the second time that I had ever seen a yellow lady’s slipper and this time I was prepared with all of the right equipment.

So, I dragged myself out of bed, put on my field clothes and went downstairs. My mother, being my mother, wanted to make sure that I was ready for action and to ensure that I was prepared she made me a fresh batch of her world famous blueberry muffins. Then, after some wonderful morning chit-chat over coffee, I headed out the door and met Merry at the trailhead. It was a stupendously beautiful morning and I was informed that another friend, Dawn, was already in the woods for some pre-game birding.

The nice thing about wildflowering is the fact that the flowers don’t move. You find one and you know where it will be the next time you go looking for it. The only difference between birding and wildflowering is the fact that flowers have a blooming schedule that is complete with an expiration date. Thus, you will know where the flower is, but you also know that it won’t last forever. This is why I got up early to go see the yellow lady’s slippers. I was told that they had hit their peak and I couldn’t afford to wait lest the blossoms lose their quality.

We met Dawn just a short way up to the trail and then began a luxurious ramble through the Holyoke Range State Forest. The trails were as familiar to me as the layout of my parents’ home and it was a delight to be back in the woods that had been my childhood playground. The walking was casual because birders can’t help but to stop and scrutinize every chirp and twitter coming from the trees.

“Black-and-white warbler!” Then we all stop. “Scarlet tanager!” Then we stop again.

It took over an hour for us to finally reach the flowers, but when we finally arrived I could see that the entire endeavor had been worth it. They were growing next to a small, trickle of a stream that was fed by a small spring further up the mountain and they were beautifully situated next to a tree that offered them some measure of protection from wind and wandering mammals. I counted four blossoms in all and it was clear that one of them had been nibbled on by something. However, there were two flowers that were particularly lovely and I began my work.

There was wind that morning and this caused the flowers to move around quite a bit. The wind also had the frustrating effect of changing the lighting in the forest. A lull meant that the leaves above could settle and the lighting would darken and become richer. A gust of wind would arrive and then the lighting would brighten causing patches of sunlight to penetrate the canopy and reach the forest floor where they would wreak havoc on my exposures. Thus, I was required to spend 10 minutes taking 107 photographs, but it was totally worth it.

The pink lady’s slipper is a much smaller plant with a single long stem emerging from between two “basal” leaves, which means that the leaves come right out of the ground. In contrast, the yellow lady’s slipper is a much taller plant with substantial greenery and multiple leaves extending up to two feet off the ground. The blossoms, which resemble hollow balloons, are deceptive bee traps that have a one-way entrance and then a rear exit. Bees that are lured into the flowers find that there is no actual reward and then they pick up pollen on their way out. It turns out that orchids can be more than a little deceptive with their pollinators.

I’ve spent decades wandering through the forests of western Massachusetts and I’ve only stumbled upon yellow lady’s slippers two times. So, I really can’t tell you where to find them, because I really have no idea. However, I can say that dry forests with oak trees present seem to be involved. If you know of such a place and you feel like going for a hike, then I would do it as soon as possible. Even as I write this column the temperature outside is only 28 degrees Fahrenheit and this may result in the flowers getting “zapped” by the cold. But any time spent in the woods during the spring is time well spent, so it might just be worth it to go have a look.

Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 26 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and he currently teaches high school biology and physics. For more in formation visit his website at www.speakingofnature.com, or head over to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.

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