an amazing thing

Each year, about now, I start craving the green world of plants.  Trudging along on the daily walk, encumbered by snow boots and coveralls, the heatless light of short days waning early, I contemplate living things at rest beneath the snow.  Barn chores are early and end the day.  It is a time of long darkness and of rest.

Consider the development of the Lesser ladies slipper (a.k.a. Cypripedium parviflorum), I do.  One seed pod may hold a whopping 16,700 seeds, some of which may disperse up to 900 miles.  With seeds remaining viable for up to 8 years, you might wonder that they haven’t replaced dandelions as the pan-global weed.  This amazing plant has a different strategy, much of it formulated underground, hidden from view.

The catch, the reason this beauty is not a weed, is an intricate relationship that the light, nutrition-less seed must form with not-always-present threads of mycorrhizal fungus in the ground before it develops into a flowering plant.  Utterly dependant on the fungi during its early life, the naked speck of a seed may spend from one to four years underground, working through several stages of development before a plant capable of photosynthesis sprouts.  And then, it will be many more years before it blooms.  The subterranean, clandestine, mycorrhizal relationship is essential to seed development, seedling establishment, and very possibly even adult winter dormancy.                                                                                       
                                                                                                                       ~ Mary

Cypripedium parviflorum

From my Native Orchids of North America series – this is an original relief print ~ 6” x 11” ~ printed from multiple hand-cut linoleum blocks, and signed as a numbered edition of 100.  Made using archival ink on Okawara MM neutral pH paper and printed on a Whelan Pro Press at Green Ink Gallery & Studios in the Black Hills near Nemo, South Dakota.

Artist & amateur botanist, Mary Wipf lives & works in the Black Hills of South Dakota creating drawings, collages, fine marbled papers & silks, and original prints.

All materials and pigments used meet the highest archival standards.

Green Ink Gallery & Studios • by appointment

605 342-2552 • www.greeninkgalleryandstudios.com

Mary Wipf & Mark Zimmerman – artists:

paintings, drawings, original prints, and fine marbled silks & papers

View more posts from the orchid series...

Corallorhiza maculata:  http://greeninkseen.blogspot.com/2010/12/thing-of-beauty.html

Cypripedium parviflorum: http://greeninkseen.blogspot.com/2011/12/amazing-thing.html

Calypso bulbosa: http://greeninkseen.blogspot.com/2014/12/it-takes-forest.html

Listera convallarioides: http://greeninkseen.blogspot.com/2012/06/small-thing.html