Ghost of the woods

For years I've been searching wild places for lady slippers. Cypripedium orchids. These temperate orchids are rare in cultivation and even rarer in the wild.  They like it wet, wild and woody. They have since ancient times been associated with lust and desire. They were named by the ancient Greeks who believed that the Goddess Aphrodite lost her slipper when a lover’s tryst in the woods was abruptly interrupted. Where her slipper fell a plant sprouted forth with a flower the shape of a slipper. The lady’s slipper in all of its many incarnations has always been associated with elves, fairies and other spirits of the woods. Many cultures around the world have their own myths about these magical plants but the truth about these plants is even more incredible. Each flower, once fertilized by a winged insect turns into a seed pod containing millions of tiny lighter-than-air seeds which waft away with the wind. These tiny little capsules of life can travel up into the heavens, and in theory up into the jet stream and around the world. Of all of these millions of seeds only a lucky few will fall to the ground in a place where the temperature, soil, water, and light are just right. They also need a particular type of fungus to be present in the soil in order to germinate. The lucky ones do germinate, and if they are even luckier they will live uninterrupted for about five years until they produce their own lady slipper flowers. If you are as lucky as they are you might come across one in some clearing in some wild forest. If you are luckier than me, then if you do happen to see some of these magical plants...the fucking things will be in bloom! God damn it.