Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Liliopsida -- monocotyledons

Order: Orchidales

Family: Orchidaceae -- orchid

Common Name: Clustered lady’s-slipper.

Species Code: CYFA

Origin: Native to open coniferous woods and moist shrub thickets of Washington, northeastern Oregon, northern Idaho and adjacent northwestern Montana. Disjunct populations also occur in southeast Oregon and the mountainous areas of northern California, and in northern Utah and adjacent parts of northern Colorado and southern Wyoming.

Rare: Ranked S3 (rare or uncommon) by both the Natural Heritage Program in Washington and the Conservation Data Center in Idaho. Uncommon and widely scattered elsewhere.

Form: forb, perennial, 5-30 cm tall, taller in fruit, lanate-pilose.

Duration: perennial

Habitat Type: forest

Wetland Indicator Status: FACU

Leaves: 2, subopposite, flat, rounded, sessile, with prominent venation.

Mature height: 5-12 inches

Flowers: perfect; sepals 12-25 mm long, greenish brown to greenish purple; petals pale greenish yellow, sometimes with reddish brown to purple veins or spots, shorter than the sepals, the lower lip inflated and pouch-like.

Flower color: green, brown to purple

Bloom: June

Fruit: capsule, erect

Characteristics:
Reproduces sexually by seed.
Perennating organ is a rhizome.
Orchid seeds germinate but generally produce only a small corm the first year. The second year they produce a few roots, a scale leaf and a stem tip. The third year they produce an aerial green leaf and usually require 8-16 years to produce a flower (Curtis 1943).
C. montanum seeds germinate but do not send up leaves until 1.5 years. Require at least 4 years after leaf emergence to flowering (Huber 2002).
Cypripedium spp. do not produce nectar and attract pollinators by deceit (Kaye 1999).
Pollinated by insects.
Fruit is a capsule.

Sun requirement: partial shade

Soil moisture: moist

Sowing time: not recommended

Transplant time: not recommended

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Key words: native upland forb

Propagation:
Neither native orchids nor their seed should be collected from the wild. Enjoy them where they grow and leave them alone. Orchid seeds are dissimilar from seed of most other plants. Seed germination requires the use of special media and techniques.
Orchid seeds lack an endosperm, radicle, and leaf rudiments (Arditti et al 1981).
Native orchids do not do well in cultivation and will persist in the garden for only a few seasons. They should not be collected from the wild (Hitchcock & Cronquist 1973).
Reproduces sexually by seed.
Perennating organ is a rhizome.

Notes: Cypripedium fasciculatum and Cypripedium montanum are both forest species although C. montanum does sometimes grow under hawthorn. Like most orchids, they are very difficult to grow. No one should be collecting seed or plants of either one. Enjoy them where they occur and otherwise leave them alone. Common names are clustered ladyslipper and mountain ladyslipper, respectively (Skinner et al 2005).

References:
Arditti, Joseph, Justine D. Michaud, and Allison P. Oliva. 1981. Seed Germination of North American Orchids. I. Native California and Related Species of Calypso, Epipactis, Goodyera, Piperia, and Platanthera. Botanical Gazette 142:442-453.

Brown, Paul M. 2006. Wild Orchids of the Pacific Northwest and Canadian Rockies. University Press of Florida, Gainesville FL. 287 pp.

Curtis, John T. 1943. Germination and Seedling Development in Five Species of Cypripedium L. American Journal of Botany 30:199-206.

Hitchcock, C. Leo, and Arthur Cronquist. 1973. Flora of the Pacific Northwest. Univ. of Washington Press. Seattle, WA.

Huber, Andrew G. 2002. Mountain Lady's Slipper (Cypridedium montanum): Establishment from Seed in Forest Openings. Native Plants Journal 3(2):151-154.

Kaye, Thomas N. 1999. Timber Harvest and Cypripedium montanum: Results of a Long-term Study on the Medford District BLM. Report to USDI Bureau of Land Management. Online at http://www.appliedeco.org/Reports/Cypripedium_montanum_logging.PDF

Skinner, David M., Paul Warnick, Bill French, and Mary Fauci. 2005. More Palouse Forbs for Landscaping. USDA NRCS Pullman Plant Materials Center and Palouse Prairie Foundation. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/pmc_nrcs/Docs/More_Forbs_for_Landscaping.pdf

Links:
Plant Profile from the USDA PLANTS Database
Species description from Flora of North America
Species information from the University of Washington Herbarium