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Cypripedium arietinum
Also called Ram's Head
Cypripedium arietinum, commonly known as the ram's-head lady's slipper, is a small herbaceous perennial in the orchid family, Orchidaceae. Its common name refers to the resemblance between the flowers and a ram's head. Native to eastern North America, it grows in swamp forests, sandy bluffs, and upland forests, with a distribution centered around the Great Lakes region and extending west to Saskatchewan and east to Nova Scotia. The species primarily spreads vegetatively by forming clumps of genetically identical offshoots, but they are also pollinated by sweat bees. Populations vary from a few individuals to more than one thousand plants.
Among the North American slipper orchids, C. arietinum has distinctive floral morphology, including unfused lateral sepals and a lip with a pointed base. These characteristics led some early taxonomists to place the plant in a separate genus.
Pink lady's slipper · Lady's-slipper orchid · California lady's slipper · White lady's-slipper · Dickinson's lady's slipper · Elegant Cypripedium · Clustered lady's slipper · Yellow Cypripedium · Formosa's lady's slipper · Franchet's Cypripedium · Spotted lady's slipper · Henry's Cypripedium
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cypripedium arietinum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
