Calypso bulbosa

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Calypso is a genus of orchids containing one species, Calypso bulbosa, known as the calypso orchid, fairy slipper or Venus's slipper. It is a perennial member of the orchid family found in undisturbed northern and montane forests. It has a small pink, purple, pinkish-purple, or red flower accented with a white lip, darker purple spottings, and yellow beard. The genus Calypso takes its name from the Greek signifying concealment, as they tend to favor sheltered areas on conifer forest floors. The specific epithet, bulbosa, refers to the bulb-like corms.Template:Sfn

Description

Calypso bulbosa is a low growing herbaceous plant with a nearly egg-shaped underground storage organ called a corm. It is encased in dead leaf sheaths and has elongated roots. Calypso orchids are typically 8 to 20 cm in height.Template:Sfn Plants have a single leaf that measures 1 to 6.5 centimeters long with a width of 1.2 to 5.2 cm. The leaf is suborbiculate, nearly circular, or ovate, egg shaped in outline. The base of the leaf is often cordate, having an indentation like the top of a heart.Template:Sfn The leaf often has a very long petiole, a leaf stalk attaching it to the plant.Template:Sfn The leaf sprouts in the autumn and remains green over the winter. It withers a short time after flowering.Template:Sfn

Plant blooms with a purple-pink hermaphroditic, zygomorphic and threefold flower. The protruding petals and sepals are pink to purple in color, about 10 to 12 millimeters long and about 2 to 4 millimeters wide. The lip (labellum) is white to pink with pink or yellow spots. It has a wide, shoe-shaped cavity in the back and is about 15 to 25 millimeters long.Template:Sfn They do not bloom until May and June usually after snow melt.Template:Sfn A new bulb is formed by the plant each year, but bulbs from one or two years prior can remain attached and firm.Template:Sfn Plants seldom live for longer than five years.Template:Sfn

Taxonomy and systematics

The chromosome count is 2n = 28. Since the orchid seed does not provide any nutrient tissue, germination only takes place when infected by a mycorrhizal root fungus.

Taxonomy

The accepted generic name Calypso Template:Small was described in 1808 by the English gardener Richard Anthony Salisbury in the work Paradisus Londinensis.Template:Sfn It was published with the then-director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in London, William Jackson Hooker (1785–1865).Template:Citation needed In 1905, Homer Doliver House proposed that the genus be renamed as Cytherea because of the earlier publication of Calypso by Louis-Marie Aubert du Petit-Thouars 1804, regarded as a synonym of Salacia.Template:Sfn In 1930 it was made a conserved name by the International Botanical Congress.Template:Sfn

The following generic names have been published as synonyms:Template:Sfn

Calypso bulbosa was assigned to the genus Cypripedium in 1753 by Carl von Linné in Species Plantarum. It was moved to the genus Calypso by the botanist William Oakes 1842.Template:Sfn

Varieties

Four varieties and one nothovariety, a variety of hybrid origin that is established in the wild, are recognized:Template:Sfn

Image Variety Distribution
File:Calypso bulbosa (8883583432).jpg Calypso bulbosa var. americana (R.Br.) Luer most of Canada, western and northern United States
File:Calypso bulbosa Finland, Keminmaa 2014-05-23.jpg Calypso bulbosa var. bulbosa Sweden, Finland, Baltic States, much of Russia, Mongolia, Korea
File:Calypso bulbosa nothovar. kostiukiae - Kate 01.jpg Calypso bulbosa nothovar. kostiukiae Catling Alberta (C. bulbosa var. americana × C. bulbosa var. occidentalis)Template:Sfn
File:Calypsobulbosa.jpg Calypso bulbosa var. occidentalis (Holz.) Cockerell from Alaska and British Columbia south through the Cascades, Rockies, and Sierra Nevada to California
File:Calypso bulbosa, Japan 1.JPG Calypso bulbosa var. speciosa (Schltr.) Makino citation CitationClass=web

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Synonyms

Calypso bulbosa has Template:Table row counter synonyms of the species or one of its four varieties, including 16 species.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Table of SynonymsTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Name Year Rank Synonym of: Notes
Calypso americana Template:Small 1813 species var. americana ≡ hom.
Calypso borealis Template:Small 1808 species C. bulbosa ≡ hom., nom. superfl.
Calypso bulbosa f. albiflora Template:Small 1995 form var. americana = het.
Calypso bulbosa subsp. americana Template:Small 2010 subspecies var. americana ≡ hom.
Calypso bulbosa f. americana Template:Small 1995 form var. americana ≡ hom.
Calypso bulbosa f. biflora Template:Small 2004 form var. americana = het.
Calypso bulbosa f. candida Template:Small 1945 form var. bulbosa = het.
Calypso bulbosa f. nivea Template:Small 1995 form var. occidentalis = het.
Calypso bulbosa subsp. occidentalis Template:Small 1963 subspecies var. occidentalis ≡ hom.
Calypso bulbosa f. occidentalis Template:Small 1895 form var. occidentalis ≡ hom.
Calypso bulbosa f. rosea Template:Small 1995 form var. americana = het.
Calypso occidentalis Template:Small 1898 species var. occidentalis ≡ hom.
Calypso speciosa Template:Small 1919 species var. speciosa ≡ hom.
Calypsodium boreale Template:Small 1829 species C. bulbosa ≡ hom., nom. superfl.
Cymbidium boreale Template:Small 1799 species C. bulbosa ≡ hom., nom. superfl.
Cypripedium bulbosum Template:Small 1753 species C. bulbosa ≡ hom.
Cytherea borealis Template:Small 1812 species C. bulbosa ≡ hom., nom. superfl.
Cytherea bulbosa Template:Small 1905 species C. bulbosa ≡ hom.
Cytherea bulbosa var. occidentalis Template:Small 1915 variety var. occidentalis ≡ hom.
Cytherea occidentalis Template:Small 1906 species var. occidentalis ≡ hom.
Cytherea speciosa Template:Small 1929 species var. speciosa ≡ hom.
Limodorum boreale Template:Small 1805 species C. bulbosa ≡ hom., nom. superfl.
Norna borealis Template:Small 1833 species C. bulbosa ≡ hom., nom. superfl.
Norna borealis var. americana Template:Small 1826 variety var. americana ≡ hom.
Norna borealis var. asiatica Template:Small 1826 variety var. bulbosa = het.
Norna borealis var. europaea Template:Small 1826 variety C. bulbosa ≡ hom., not validly publ.
Orchidium americanum Template:Small 1841 species var. americana ≡ hom.
Orchidium arcticum Template:Small 1814 species C. bulbosa ≡ hom., not validly publ.
Orchidium boreale Template:Small 1816 species C. bulbosa ≡ hom., nom. superfl.
Notes: ≡ homotypic synonym; = heterotypic synonym

Names

The genus Calypso is named in reference to the nymph Calypso, whose name means concealment. The habitat of these plants in the deep woods habitat metaphorically hides them from plant hunters. The species name, bulbosa, means possessing a bulb, referring to its growth habit.Template:Sfn Calypso bulbosa is known by the common names fairy slipper,Template:Sfn fairyslipper orchid,Template:Sfn and fairy-slipper orchid,Template:Sfn due to the prominent lower lip of the flower resembling a slipper.Template:Sfn Similarly it is known as Venus slipper or Venus' slipper,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but this name is also applied to orchids of the genus Cypripedium because of the mythological association with the goddess Venus.Template:Sfn It is also known as angel slipper, slipper orchid, redwoods orchid, deer-head orchid,Template:Sfn and calypso.Template:Sfn

Range and habitat

File:Calypso bulbosa - Flickr 004.jpg
Calypso bulbosa in Mendocino County, CA
File:Calypso bulbosa clump1.jpg
Calypso bulbosa var. americana, in bloom, Winsor Trail, Santa Fe County, New Mexico.

This species' range is circumpolar, extending around the northern hemisphere.Template:Sfn In Europe this includes just Sweden, Finland, the Baltic states, and the northern parts of European Russia.Template:Sfn It includes California, the Rocky Mountain states and most of the most northerly states of the United States; most of Canada; China, Mongolia, Korea and Japan—see external links for map.<ref name="WCSP">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=Boyden>Template:Citation</ref> It is found in subarctic swamps and marshes as well as shady places subarctic coniferous forests.

Conservation

Although the calypso orchid's distribution is wide, it is very susceptible to disturbance. The conservation organization NatureServe evaluated the species in 2025 and found it to be secure at the global level (G5). However, in the United States they found it to be vulnerable (S3) in Arizona, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Maine. In two other states, Wisconsin and Michigan, they rated it as imperiled (S2). In Canada it also is rated as vulnerable in Saskatchewan and the Yukon Territory and imperiled in New Brunswick. More critically it is critically imperiled (S1) on the Island of Newfoundland and possibly locally extinct in Nunavut.Template:Sfn

In Sweden it was listed as vulnerable in the 2020 Swedish Red List.Template:Sfn Similarly, Finland evaluated it as vulnerable in the 2019 national Red Book.Template:Sfn

Ecology

At least near Banff, Alberta, the calypso orchid is pollinated by bumble bees (Bombus (Pyrobombus) and B. Psithyrus). It relies on "pollination by deception", as it attracts insects to anther-like yellow hairs at the entrance to the pouch and forked nectary-like structures at the end of the pouch but produces no nectar that would nourish them. Insects quickly learn not to revisit it. Avoiding such recognition may account for some of the small variation in the flower's appearance.<ref name=Boyden/><ref>Template:Citation Summarized by Coleman and by Boyden</ref>

Uses

Attempts at garden cultivation are not successful and transplanting usually will kill plants. The structure of the corms suggest that the species is dependent on mycorrhizal relationships with soil funguses that are lost during transplantation.Template:Sfn The corms have been used as a food source by North American native peoples. The Nlaka'pamux of British Columbia used it as a treatment for mild epilepsy.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

References

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