Re: [SG] Corydalis and Cyprepedium

In a message dated 1/5/99 10:53:51 PM Central Standard Time, ECPep@AOL.COM
writes:

<< << White Flower Farm is selling a "trade"-produced Cypripedium this spring,
at
  a cost of $60.00 (?!) per bare-root plant.  I seem to recall Josh having
  noted that the appropriate species of mycorrhizal fungi in the soil are
  required in order for Cyp.s to flourish; otherwise they will die in a
  couple of years.  Does the fact that the plant is sent bare-root mean that
  there are none of the fungi included >>
  >>
the fungus associated with Cypripedium sp are common in almost all soils. They
are common species that cause damping off and stem root on other species of
plants and seedlings. Lets see it's been 14 years since I have done tissue
culture work with Native Cyps. So I am trying to put this together from
memory.  Rhizoctonia fungi live in the intercellular spaces of the tissue of
the plants. So buy a bare root plant should not be a problem. Many of the lady
slippers are easily to transplant as long as you do a few things. Do not break
the roots, do not let them dry out, plant them shallow. Plants can go dormant
for a few years and then start to grow again.
the fungi are most important in seed germination in the wild, but mature
plants can have a number of different fungi associated with them over a few
years. So environment seems to play an important if not predominate role in
association.

You do not state what species you are talking about.  I would assume it is the
yellow lady slipper-being it's the easiest to grow. Or it might be the showy
lady slipper.
Both these plants take a lone time to reach flowering size-up words of 15
years in the wild. They like well drained but moist soils high in organic
matter.
I do not think plants die because they lack the fungi as stated above-but
because they do not take well to tissue damage, again DO NOT break the tips of
the roots off.

When a housing development went in I collect about fifty plants of yellow lady
slipper, just digging by hand, the roots do not go deeper that 1.5 into the
soil, so I just reached under them and "pulled" them up. They lived well threw
this. But over the last three years it's been so dry in my wildflower
collection near the park that many of them are taking some time off.  But one
year I had 74 blooms with many plants producing two flowers on each stem.  I
collected a trillion seeds and scattered them in the park-maybe in 10 years I
will find some plants.
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