Cypripedium Seed Pod

[jkarlbarlow]

Maybe I should have posted this under the conservation heading, please move it if that is the case, but here is the situation. We are lucky enough to have a healthy cluster of cyp. acaule on our property.
Cypripedium by jkarlbarlow, on Flickr
There are close to 20 blooming size plants and more younger plants within a couple of hundred square feet. I looked at the status of the species in my state and it is not listed as endangered, threatened, or of special concern.
This past weekend, I walked past where the plants grow and noticed that one had formed a seed pod.
Cypripedium by jkarlbarlow, on Flickr
Sorry for the quality of this picture. The question is, what would you do with it? Would you leave it and so what happens? Would you harvest it and try to grow it out? It is still green and I know some people prefer to work with them at this stage which is why I am asking now.

What does anyone think?

Josh

 

[Ray]

Cypripediums have VERY specific relationships with mycorrhizae that are necessary for seed germination in nature. Attempting to sow the seed elsewhere has very little chance of success. You're better off leaving it alone.

And, in my opinion, the fact that your state has no protection on them suggests to me that 1) either you just didn't find the statute, or 2) your state. Like many of them, is governed by a bunch of idiots.

 

[PaphMadMan]

I agree with Ray that it would be best to let nature take its course or if you happen to be there when the pod starts shedding seed you could help spread it around a little more widely within the appropriate habitat on your property.

For next year you could do some hand pollination to help more capsules form. Then if there are multiple capsules you could plan on harvesting one, after talking with a seed sowing lab and getting their advice. And after double checking your state regulations to be sure.

 

[jkarlbarlow]

Thanks for the replies. I live in Connecticut and the last published list from DEEP shows cyp. arietinum, parviorum, and reginae only. I, of course, do not want to do anything that is going to threaten the plants. I was wondering along the lines of flasking the seed. I think I remember reading that someone was working with that.
That said, I like your idea paphmadman, I think I will try to hand pollinate next year and see if we can get more viable seed. There is at least one pod from a previous year but it does look like most of the plants fail to produce seed. Do you have any good direction on hand pollinating cyps?

Josh


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[PaphMadMan]

Web search for "pollinating Cypripediums by hand" and you should find several useful pages.

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

You can try to increase your population by cross pollinating plants each spring and just letting the seeds disperse as they may. Ron Burch reported that he saw big jumps in C. acaule seedling numbers after he hand pollinated plants in a state forest in northwest Connecticut. Raising them from seed in aseptic culture is a bit tricky at home and especially with terrestrial orchids, though it certainly can be done.

As for this species being in any way at risk of extinction, I think humans have more to worry about. It is locally rare in the far flung parts of its range, but other than that, it is not in trouble. In Connecticut it is a locally abundant, common forest species.

 

[cnycharles]

deceased friend rick braue used to pollinate hundreds of pinks at pitch pine bog. it may be a good practice to learn how to pollinate, and if you then have extra pods try flasking after you have learned all you can. otherwise make lots of pods and scatter the seed all around.
up north at purdon fen a gentleman found cyp reginae, learned to pollinate and started spreading the seed around his property now there are hundreds of flowering plants and a tremendous sight to see

 

[Ozpaph]

I like 'active' conservation.

 

[StreetVariety]

Don't be dramatic. Acaule is one of the most common orchid in the eastern states. It's not going to go extinct. Just leave it be and it'll be fine. Next year, you can hand fertilize them to increase the local population. I hand fertilizered about 20 acaules around at a local park this year. I plan to take 1-3 pods to practice flasking and leave the rest of pods alone.

 

[NYEric]

Nice. Good luck either way.

 

[fundulopanchax]

As Tom noted, I follow a colony of plants, about 300, in NW CT. In typical years about 5% of flowers result in pods. I have hand pollinated and get 100% set with those. Another experiment has been to spread the seed around over an area of about one square meter. This has resulted in dozens of seedlings in those spots. They bloom quickly, usually the second or third year from sowing. The remainder of the colony has few seedlings most times since there are so few pods.

A few years ago for an unknown to me reason, more than 90% of flowers set pods, perhaps there were a lot of young bumblebees that year at the time of flowering. This has resulted in a large increase in population. I now count nearly 600 plants.

I have also found that spreading seed around white pines in areas with no acaule can result in many seedlings the next year.

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

I'm glad you chimed in Ron. I am grateful that you have shared you experience with others - notably that pollinating flowers in the wild can have a huge impact on local populations. Also, you have demonstrated that the recruitment of new sexually reproductive individuals does not take forever, or is in some way mysterious. Further, your experiment of successfully sowing seeds in places where no adult plants were present, as also useful information.

Finally, your efforts are a true experiment in pragmatic conservation.

 

[fundulopanchax]

I was very surprised at how fast blooming of acaule from seed occurred. A few years ago I sent some seed from plants that grow in the woods behind my house to a person who has no acaule at his location. He had inquired if I sold seedlings of acaule. I told him that I sow the seed in the duff around white pines. He also has white pines. Two years later he sent a photo of several acaule and one was blooming. They were from the seed I sent which he had sprinkled around his white pines. So acaule does grow very quickly. The seedlings from the seed I sow in the woods are pretty good size the first year - somewhat larger than the first year seedlings of other Cyps I grow from flask. By the second year they look like adult plants only somewhat smaller than plants I have watched for 10 years.

 

[Linus_Cello]

I was very surprised at how fast blooming of acaule from seed occurred. A few years ago I sent some seed from plants that grow in the woods behind my house to a person who has no acaule at his location. He had inquired if I sold seedlings of acaule. I told him that I sow the seed in the duff around white pines. He also has white pines. Two years later he sent a photo of several acaule and one was blooming. They were from the seed I sent which he had sprinkled around his white pines. So acaule does grow very quickly. The seedlings from the seed I sow in the woods are pretty good size the first year - somewhat larger than the first year seedlings of other Cyps I grow from flask. By the second year they look like adult plants only somewhat smaller than plants I have watched for 10 years.

Was this also in CT? I'm guessing too hot for acule in the DC area.

 

[mrhappyrotter]

Was this also in CT? I'm guessing too hot for acule in the DC area.

I doubt that DC is too hot. I know for sure that C. acaule is locally abundant in areas throughout North Carolina, and I'm pretty sure at least some of that range is just as hot if not hotter than DC.

 

[Linus_Cello]

I doubt that DC is too hot. I know for sure that C. acaule is locally abundant in areas throughout North Carolina, and I'm pretty sure at least some of that range is just as hot if not hotter than DC.

Yah, probably mountainous areas cooler and better for them (in VA, Shennandoah, which extends to NC).

 

[cnycharles]

There are acaule at park within viewing distance across water from NYC, and it gets pretty hot there (just not as many times as further south


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[KyushuCalanthe]

They grow far south of Washington. I’ve personally seen them on the boundary of the piedmont/coastal plain a few miles away from the North Carolina state line. I was amazed to read that they had also been found in South Carolina in Georgetown County which is a coastal county south of Myrtle Beach*!

Take a look at this map of C. acaule’s distribution in the US and Canada (from BONAP, The Biota of North America Program):

Distribution Map

The issue with these doesn’t appear to be temperature so much as very exacting edaphic conditions, notably very low pH values and the presence of certain mycorrhizal fungi. Still, out of its native habitat, these are not easy plants to maintain longterm.

* ”Wild Orchids of South Carolina” by James A Fowler, p. 48. Ron Burch gave me this book years ago.

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

Since I'm digging deep, here's an interesting study done on the orchid populations of the barrier islands of the Atlantic coast. C. acaule is mentioned, with this passage being of great interest:

"Fifty to more than 100 individuals of Calopogon tuberosus, Cypripedium acaule, and Pogonia ophioglossoides consistently flower at a few barrier island localities in North Carolina and Virginia."

For the complete article, see this: Orchids of the Atlantic Coast Barrier Islands

I love stuff like this!

 

[naoki]

Thank you for sharing the experience, Ron. So they are highly pollinator limited, which isn't surprising for the rewardless system.

Did you see bumblebees go into the flower?

I've seen one, too, near Smokey NP. Not as hot as Piedmont area, but it was not too high elevation, neither.

It is interesting that among Cyps, C. acaule has the widest range of fungi, which they can associate with. I should clarify that this doesn't mean that they can associate with any fungi. They probably has specific species, but they can utilize completely different fungi (phylogenetically diverse fungi). My friend is one of the authors to this study:

Shefferson, R.P., Taylor, D.L., Weiß, M., Garnica, S., McCormick, M.K., Adams, S., Gray, H.M., McFarland, J.W., Kull, T., Tali, K. and Yukawa, T., 2007. The evolutionary history of mycorrhizal specificity among lady's slipper orchids. Evolution, 61(6), pp.1380-1390. (PDF, abstract)