One of our favorite adventures is wild flower hunting in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We use to try to go every other year. We have gotten away from that practice. We decided to return this spring and test ourselves to see if we are still able to hike the trails where we have found our favorite flowers, especially Lady’s Slippers.

Lady’s Slippers are wild orchids and are quite rare. We learned not to tell others where we find the flowers. They need a specialized environment to grow. Some folks try to pick them. They do not thrive. Some folks try to dig them up and take them home. You cannot duplicate their environment. They even require a certain kind of fungus to grow.

In order to survive and reproduce, pink lady’s slipper interacts with a fungus in the soil from the Rhizoctonia genus. Generally, orchid seeds do not have food supplies inside them like most other kinds of seeds. Pink lady’s slipper seeds require threads of the fungus to break open the seed and attach them to it. The fungus will pass on food and nutrients to the pink lady’s slipper seed. When the lady’s slipper plant is older and producing most of its own nutrients, the fungus will extract nutrients from the orchid roots. This mutually beneficial relationship between the orchid and the fungus is known as “symbiosis” and is typical of almost all orchid species.

Pink lady’s slipper takes many years to go from seed to mature plants.  Seed-bearing harvest of wild lady’s slipper root is not considered sustainable. Pink lady’s slippers can live to be twenty years old or more. https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/cypripedium_acaule.shtml

We hiked our first test, The Townsend trail called Middle Prong of Little River. We did not find the Jack-in-the-pulpit. One of my favorites. With global warming it is difficult to know when we should travel there. The “Jacks” along this trail had already bloomed and wilted. The waterfalls, however, were running gloriously. The rushing water always reminds me of the ‘streams of living water’ promised in the New Testament.

³⁷ On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as^[a] the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” ³⁹ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. John 7:37-39

Along the trail we did see Showy Orchis. It too is part of the orchid family. The ones below are fairly bleached out indicating they are older blooms.

Here we are, not pros at selfies, but delighted to have made it up our first trail!

We checked into our motel and rested towards our BIG hike. It was amazing how things looked so different. A couple of years of absence, a few wind storms and bunches of fallen trees – we at times had difficulty recognizing the next trail.

My phone told me about my activity level. It was very high activity level for me. There was some difficulty from pain on the way back to the car. Phone did not record flights climbed, but the altitude did change throughout the morning.

One phenomenon I never tire of is the swallowtails and other butterflies sipping minerals from horse apples.

Yep, old folks hiking and spotting and then, not exactly scampering, but getting up the hillside for a better shot! The horses are not allowed on this part of the trail, but old people are!

We hope and pray this was not our last time on this trail, but if we cannot make it the next time we visit, at least for this one day we were totally satisfied! the hike back to the car is all down hill and takes a toll on your knees, not to mention your back. We made it! Only had to rest a few times and rest is okay. One friend gave me a sticker that says “It doesn’t matter how slow you go, as long as you don’t stop!“I just imagine if these are the lady’s slippers we know about, how many more are hidden on this part of the earth! The Lord certainly delights us with beauty.

But ask the animals, and they will instruct you;
ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.
⁸ Or speak to the earth, and it will instruct you;
let the fish of the sea inform you.
⁹ Which of all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
¹⁰ The life of every living thing is in his hand,
as well as the breath of all humanity. Job 12:7-10 CSB