Fairy Slipper Poem by kara towe

Little fairy slipper where is your owner?
Did the fairy wearing you only loose this one slipper?
Is he/she close by?
Is he/she spying on me with little eyes?
So delicately made is this slipper I see.
How many more fairies in the forest could there be?
Maybe they are all around me waiting to retrieve the slipper.
I understand their concerns of me since I’m much bigger.
Don’t worry little ones I come in awe of this magical place.
I will leave without a trace.


Fun Facts about Fairy Slippers:
Western fairy slipper favors a shady location underneath evergreens that are moist with an organic-rich soil.
This orchid blooms from spring to midsummer and emerges from a small tuber.
The fairy slipper orchid has a single flower atop a bare stem.
This tiny flower is only an inch across and is stunning with its brilliant magenta color, boldly patterned lip and vanilla scent.
The leaves are oval and ribbed.
In Washington State this orchid can be found in the Mount Rainier National Park, Little Pend Oreille National Wildlife Refuge and the Olympic National Park. The distribution is Alaska to California and east to Idaho.

The fairy slipper orchid favors a shady location underneath evergreens that are moist with an organic-rich soil.
Though not endangered, they require special conditions of shade, moisture and soil that cannot be duplicated outside of old-growth forest.
The single leaf has a very limited ability to photosynthesize and so cannot provide all the nutrients the plant needs.
This orchid, along with many others in the Pacific Northwest, grows in partnership with a fungus in the soil that shares nutrients taken from the roots of trees.

So in a way, the orchid is using the needles of evergreen trees in the forest to provide the nourishment it needs through a fungus.