Eastern Fairy Slipper

We are still traveling and dependent on stops with internet for posting and commenting. Today we are in Florence, Oregon, and headed south to northern California. We've been stopping often to photograph Oregon's beautiful coastline and lighthouses and to explore the tide pools, so we have made very slow progress. We spent the morning stopping around Cape Perpetua and hiking to the Haceta Head lighthouse and stopping at the Darlingtonia Natural Area north of Florence where we saw and photographed the Cobra Lilies that grow there.. The weather started gray and cloudy but has turned sunny and warm, though windy.

This photo is from last week's orchid-hunting trip and is of the Eastern Fairy Slipper. The Western Fairy Slipper is found only west of the Rockies, but the Eastern is found all across the USA except a small area west of the Cascades. The Western Fairy Slipper's and the Eastern's ranges overlap where this was photographed and I stopped hoping to find the natural hybrid of the two. There were very few Fairy Slippers blooming this year in a place where there are usually hundreds of them, but I did find one hybrid.