Mountain Lady's Slipper

I'm using this photo to write about the variation we find in this species of orchid. Mountain Lady's Slippers are Washington's most common Lady's Slipper. Its range is quite limited - British Columbia and Alberta in Canada, and Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and northern California in the States. This flower is the darker form. The flower segments can also be a greenish color, and though the pouch is usually purple lined on the inside it does not always have the purple around the opening of the pouch as this flower does. The staminode, the yellow pollination mechanism, can also be red-spotted. Where we've found the species the darker forms seem to bloom slightly later than the greenish forms.