The Land of the Lady Slipper Festival is BACK!! Help us celebrate our famous wildflower in Minnesota’s only National Park. Voyageurs National Park is located on the Minnesota/Canadian Border. Kabetogama Lake is a large resort community and attracts vacationers from all corners of the nation.

SHOWY LADY'S SLIPPER (Cypripedium reginae) - Minnesota’s state flower. Native perennial, 1-2', in fens,
swamps, drainages. Flowers, 1-3 on a stalk, have a large white and pink pouch with narrow, white petals. Blooms in June to
mid- July. The scientific name means “queen’s slipper.”

The usually pink, but occasionally red or white flower is about 1" - 2" long, is cleft in the middle, and has the
unmistakable slipper, or moccasin shape to it. The cleft in the middle is actually an entrance for insects, which acts as
a one way door. Inside the flower small hairs "direct" the insect (usually bees) where to go, some never do make it out.
If they do manage to follow the hairs properly they are sent through a very narrow passage, which forces the bee or
whatever bug it may bee to be coated in pollen. All that and the insect hardly gets any nectar to show for it's hard work.
Once the flower is fertilized and the seeds dispersed, they need to find a mycorrhizal fungus, in order to germinate and
grow. It may take two to three years before the plant emerges to flower. Without the mycorrhizal fungus the flower is
unable to absorb any nutrition, since the roots and tubers are without root hairs to perform this function. Once the plant
does flower it may bloom every summer for a century or more. The plant has two large (up to 8"), broad, parallel veined,
basal leaves and is the only lady's slipper to not have stem leaves. The stem itself can reach heights of up to 18".

	The Pink and White Lady's Slipper is a robust plant, arising from a rhizome with a fascicle of numerous fibrous roots, 25-90 cm high.
	Several to many stems may arise from the same rootstock.
	The leaves of the Pink and White Lady's Slipper plant are 3-5, ovate, 10-25 cm long and 4-16 cm wide; and densely pubescent.
	In the language of flowers, Lady's Slipper means Capricious Beauty.
	The Pink and White Lady's Slipper grows slowly, taking 4 - 16 years to produce their first flower.
	The Pink and White Lady's Slipper orchid lives in a special relationship with soil fungi (Rhizoctonia), which helps the seeds germinate and grow.
	The fungus nourishes the seedling for 2 or 3 years before the plant has leaves large enough to sustain itself by photosynthesis.
	Flowering in Pink and White Lady's Slipper is only seen between June 20 to mid-July.



	northern Minnesota Lake Kabetogama, Ash River, Crane Lake, Ash Lake, Orr’s Pelican Lake Namakan Lake and Rainy Lake near International Falls Beautiful cabins, resorts. shorelines. views and dreams. Rent a cabin, eal estate lakefront view attractions hiking Kabetogama Web Cam, Ash River Webcam and the Crane Lake Web Cam voyageurs national park walleye, northern pike, smallmouth bass info events museums