RHH's photos with the keyword: nivea

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.

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.

I have a few more pictures to post from our Winchester Mountain hike last summer, but thought I would intersperse them with some pictures of native orchids taken more recently. This the "albino" form of the Western Fairy Slipper, with none of the darker coloring of that species. It is quite rare and we found only two of them this summer in all the different places where we found Fairy Slippers. The ordinary form is shown in the inset. This was photographed with my Canon 100mm macro lens.

The is the rare white form of the Western Fairy Slipper. I posted a picture of the ordinary form several days ago (see below). This was found by a friend and we went to see it on a very wet and rainy day since we did not want to miss the opportunity to photograph it. It is the only one of this form that I've seen. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/05/spring-in-w...

This photo was taken last year in Washington Park. It shows a very rare white form of the Western Fairy Slipper, the only flower of this form I have ever seen. Sadly, when I went back to see it this spring someone had dug it up. The hole was still there. I can't understand that anyone can be so selfish and so stupid as to remove such a treasure from its place, but that's the way some people are. nativeorchidsofthepacificnorthwest.blogspot.com/2012/05/w...

Last year we found our first white Fairy Slipper but when I returned to see it this spring it had been dug up and removed by some idiot. This spring we found four more white Fairy Slippers in another location. This one is particularly interesting because it is not a pure white form (usually referred to as an alba form). If you look closely you can see a hint of pink in the sepals and petals and there was also a very faint hint of brown spots in the lip and the coloring at the back of the lip is brownish green rather than green. A pure white form would have no pink or brown color at all. Nevertheless, because this has the white lip it probably would be classified as Calypso bulbosa var. occidentalis fma. nivea, i.e., the Bulbous Calypso, the western variety, the white form. nativeorchidsofthepacificnorthwest.blogspot.com/2013/05/f...

This photo was taken last year in Washington Park. It shows a very rare white form of the Western Fairy Slipper, the only flower of this form I have ever seen. Sadly, when I went back to see it this spring someone had dug it up. The hole was still there. I can't understand that anyone can be so selfish and so stupid as to remove such a treasure from its place, but that's the way some people are. nativeorchidsofthepacificnorthwest.blogspot.com/2012/05/w...