The rare sighting of lady slippers at the beginning

We are stepping through the woods with a spring in our step now. For the first time since our move to Maine and the almost daily patrols through the back woods, we have found lady slipper orchids right after sprouting. Here is (at right) an even usual sight: a pair of lady slippers. What is so exciting here?

Lady slippers are an orchid; orchids are typically rare plants growing in warm, humid climates. However, the existence of lady slippers in Maine is not unusual and I have seen them in the woods here ever since we moved to Maine (twenty-four years now). With their presence not a mystery, they are still quite unusual to see. The typical population is sparse and scattered randomly among the woods in single plants. One year I remember counting
as many as twenty-one plants among the mile-square area I usually patrol. The beginning of the lady slipper’s life is the small green broad leaves as shown above. This matches a host of small green-leaved under-forest plants. Without knowing exactly where a lady slipper grows, it is almost impossible to identify it among the thousands of other green plants during their initial growth stage.

The lady slippers are not only sparse but almost never, ever, grow together; finding a pair is a rarity built on rarity. Did I mention that the usual lady slipper flower is pink? Finding a white lady slipper flower is another level of rarity (I have seen two or three over the last few years).

We cannot let you go without the obligatory close-up of an airliner flying overhead (this one Europe-bound). This image is interesting technically because the contrails seem to be in front of the tree branches on the lower right (except for the larger sized trunk in the extreme lower right). The focus field is the jet and contrails, putting the branches out of focus; however, the branches are still in front of the contrails relative to the viewer and camera lens.