Fairy Slipper- Calypso bulbosa The genus Calypso consists of a single species. It was named for the sea nymph Calypso, of Homer's Odyssey, who kept Ulysses on her island for seven years; the species name bulbosa refers to the bulb-like corm. Several whimsical English common-names, such as fairy-slipper and Venus'-slipper, have been used for this species, and yet the "common man" seemingly prefers to call it Calypso.

Calypso blooms early, usually around late May. In southern Manitoba, moist cedar forests are the best places to look for this uncommon orchid; further north, it is found in a wider variety of coniferous forest underlain by limestone.

The flowering plant is about 15 cm tall, and the remarkable flower gets more interesting upon closer examination. The solitary flower has pink petals and sepals; the slipper-like lip is about 20 mm long, and is covered with narrow stripes of pink and purple. A glistening white apron covers the lower part of the lip, with a bright-yellow bristly beard near the opening. Two small teeth or horns protrude below that apron. A flower will occasionally be white instead of pink, though the yellow parts (beard and teeth) remain yellow and the pouch remains striped. The candy-striped seed-capsule matures in July, is much more erect than the flower, and also makes for a great photo.

The single oval basal leaf is distinctively pleated, and has an unusual growing cycle. The leaf appears in the fall, stays dormant but green all winter, grows again in early spring, but then dies soon after the flower opens. This means the plant is leafless for most of the summer.

Several NOCI members, including myself, were part of a group that visited Churchill in July of 2004. We were intent on following up a tip about small pink calypso-like flowers being seen there, although aware that Churchill is many hundreds of kilometers outside of published range-maps for Calypso. Morris Sorenson, who returned from Churchill shortly before we left, told us of meeting a fellow named Paul Ratson, of Nature First Tours, who reported having seen Calypso in 2002. So Doris phoned Paul to get directions, and Lorne expertly followed these directions that called for him to spot fox dens near willows. We spent some time looking near the described spot for seed-capsules as well as for flowers. I was walking away from the group, seeking cover behind trees or shrubs which were sparse and spare, when I came across a patch of these pink flowers which made me forget fullness of bladder for about an hour. After shouting to the rest of the group, but before they got there, I snapped a photograph which appears on the cover.