15 centimetre ruler included for scale

Upright plants with showy, yellow, large pouch-like lower lip. Two lateral, twisted petals, one sepal above the pouch, and the two sepals under the pouch are united. Stems are pubescent, leaf margins hairy and also hairy on undersides along the nerves. Leaves are alternate, oval, we measured them to 12 cm long and 5 cm wide.

Distinguished from Small Yellow Lady's Slipper (Cypripedium parviflorum var. makasin) chiefly by the size of the lower lip, which in Large Yellow Lady's Slipper is > 30 mm in length, and less than 30 mm for Small Yellow Lady's Slipper. Plants in above photo had their lower lip measuring up to 45 mm. The lateral petals in Large Yellow Lady's Slipper in general are lighter in colour, yellowish-green streaked with brown, and not the dark brown colour often found in Small Yellow Lady's Slipper.

Large Yellow Lady's Slipper is rare in Saskatchewan, listed as an S2 by the Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre.

Habitat ranges from moist grassland meadows in the eastern Parklands in Saskatchewan to coniferous bogs in our boreal forest.

Photos taken June 28th, in swampy black spruce woods, near La Ronge, about 600 km north of Regina, SK, and July 6th wet black spruce woods Hudson Bay district, about 425 km north east of our home in Regina, SK.

I get preachy here: please don't dig up native orchids such as Lady's Slippers to try to grow them in your garden. They are becoming rare in the wild due to loss of habitat and wild harvesting. They are difficult to transplant successfully from the wild. If you want to grow them in your garden, there are nurseries who grow native orchids from seed who will sell plants to you.