All orchids are beautiful, but I am particularly fascinated by Lady’s Slipper orchids, which are characterized by a slipper-shaped pouch. The pouch traps insects that help to fertilize the flower as they climb up and out of the pouch. According to Wikipedia, the Lady’s Slipper orchids are in the orchid subfamily Cypripedioideae, though some apparently consider them to be their own family separate from the other orchids.
I took this shot last week in Washington D.C. at the US Botanic Garden. There were several rooms full of orchids of all kinds, including multiple species of Lady’s Slipper orchids—it was almost like being in heaven.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
What a beautiful plant!
That’s one I’ve never seen. Nice color!
I suspect that these are tropical orchids that we would never see in the wild. I’m still looking to see my first wild native orchid.
I’m usually not a big orchid fan, but this is beautiful!
The showy lady’s slipper, aka pink and white lady’s slipper, aka queen’s lady slipper is the state flower of Minnesota, and we are usually able to find several around our cabin each spring, much to our delight. Their resemblance to your orchid is really striking–lovely macro work, Mike!
Wow–you not only can identify the orchid, Gary, but you have seen them in the wild. That has to be quite a treat. Seeing them in an indoor garden is quite nice, but it’s not quite the same experience.
[…] ones we’re dreaming of were in their prime. My blogging buddy Mike Powell just posted an image (here) that he made recently, in the US Botanical Garden in Washington, DC, of a lady’s slipper orchid, […]