MAGIC IN THE WOODLAND
Rex Burress
Up in the mountain woodlands, near the shore of Spanish Creek, nestled in a brushy clearing and surrounded by a circle of towering pine trees, there is a magical place where the Lady Slipper orchid rises from the forest floor each year along in May.
Like the orchid Calypso borealis that John Muir found in a trackless Canadian swamp in 1864, the Plumas County Lady Slipper is so altogether lovely and delicate in its rugged mountain home it seems out of place amid rough-barked trees and treacherous winters. When the stem rises from the dark soil to take its turn in the rejuvenation of spring, the stunningly white-and-yellow, ball-shaped blossom stands out like a royal treasure, every bit as glorious as Muir's rare discovery.
All year, Cypripedium montanum the Mountain Lady Slipper lingers out of sight in the sod, bidding its time in seed or stem, waiting for the stirring summons to rise and shine—much like the summer campers in nearby Oakland Camp. The time allowance was for a few short weeks to grow and blossom in preparation for the next spring, like many insects in the animal kingdom, especially moths and butterflies that spend much of their existence in the form of larvae and pupa, preparing for emergence into life.
The isolation makes the lady slipper all the more noticeable and rare for those who discover it at those magical moments when it breaks forth into the world. All those years when Naturalist Paul Covel explored those woods as Camp Naturalist, he never found the lady slipper's hiding place. Perhaps the jumble of buckbrush thickets in the unlikely looking cove sent him on down the road to more promising haunts where the leopard lily and scarlet gilia could be found.
More inviting was the nearby trail to the reflection pool where “Creeping Jenny” hides at the edge along with secretive American Brooklime, and the Sierra Mint scents the adjacent meadow clearing. The Showy Milkweed also basks there in the limelight, becoming an attraction to insects and insect photographers.
Naturalist Joe Willis of Quincy was the insect man who found the lady slippers while chasing photogenic subjects. Joe also spent a summer giving nature hikes for the camp and is well acquainted with the flora and fauna of the region. Some of you may have read his “Black Oak Naturalist” blog on line. Through his reports he keeps me informed of what is in season around that American Valley region, and even though only about 70 miles from my home in Oroville, the mountainous landscape features a different wildlife community.
Every habitat has its magical moments, though, when nature interacts with climate conditions to create a period of ideal growth and activities. Something is always going on in those natural spaces in keeping accord with the seasons. Floral growth and animal life take their turns on that fascinating stage of nature where each species performs its dance-of-life show...for those who watch.
“Earth's crammed full of heaven, and every common bush is afire with God. But only those who see take off their shoes; the rest walk around picking blackberries.”--Elizabeth Browning
“...Whether we look or whether we listen,/ We hear life murmur or see it glisten./
Every clod feels a stir of might,/ An instinct within it that reaches and towers,/
And groping blindly above it for light,/ Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers...”
--James Russell Lowell [1819-1891]