RHH's photos with the keyword: albino

Camas was an important plant to the native Americans who used the bulbs for food. It grows in wetter areas on the prairies and is usually blue but can be found in pink and white as well. We found a few white flowers when we were at Hog Lake this past week.

We were out for a while yesterday doing wildflower photography on Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands. We found three native orchids in bloom along with numerous other wildflowers. Some of the native orchids we found were Fairy Slippers and among them we found two rare "albinos" without any of the normal pink and mahogany coloring. This is one of them. The other had no color at all, not even the green color at the back of the lip. A normal flower is included in the inset for comparison.

This is the "albino" or alba form of the Mountain Lady's Slipper. It has none of the mahogany or burgundy coloring of the normal form. We found these while photographing the Mountain Lady's Slippers in the Cascades, the first time we found them anywhere. There were only two plants with three flowers among the hundreds of plants and flowers we found. And a word of explanation of the names: Cypripedium means "Venus Slipper", montanum means "mountain" and "praetertinctum" means "without color", so the names very accurately describe these flowers, which are, by all accounts rather rare. Though we have seen greenish flowers with just a hint of coloration this was the first time we saw this form.

We were out on the Olympic Peninsula this morning with the Washington Native Orchid Society looking for Fairy Slippers and Coralroots, so I thought it would be appropriate to post this beauty. This is the rare white form (albino or alba) of the Western Fairy Slipper, but it was not photographed on the Olympic Peninsula. I photographed this nearer home two weeks ago. We saw Fairy Slippers this morning but no white ones. I've only seen around a half dozen of them among all the thousands of Fairy Slippers I've seen. This is Calypso bulbosa var. occidentalis fma. nivea, i.e., the Bulbous Calypso, western variety, white form.

This is the rare albino form of the Western Fairy Slipper, usually pink in color, Calypso bulbosa var. occidentalis fma. nivea. We found several of this this spring when the Fairy Slippers were blooming. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/05/orchid-hunting-on-fidalgo-and-whidbey.html