A couple weeks ago I met a friend through work who's a photographer. Her name is Aimee and the business is Kerrington Studios in Stow, MA. She had a few of ladyslippers and sarracenia and we got to talking. I ended up purchasing a bunch of cards from her. Some of you, I think have seen them, actually. :)
Anyway, one of the photos she sent me is of a Cyp. acaule with a very interesting color. It's really yellow! I got her permission to post it here to get our resident Cyp. expert's opinions. I also asked her if she adjusted the color at all and she said no, not in this photo, in a couple others she'd tried to turn down the color a little and the yellow was still there.

So, anyone seen anything like this before?
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y134/ahmcd33/c12611c0.jpg

(thanks Aimee!)

My first reaction was that it looks like it's infected with something! Sorry! :roll: I honestly don't know but I've never seen Cyp. acaule with yellow on the bloom.

Maybe the flower is just senescing?

MLO? It vaguely but only vaguely reminds me of infected Trilliums.

Yeah, me neither. I thought about maybe it just being an older flower too...:confused:

There is a lot of variation in the color and size of the flowers in this species. Occasionally I've seen flowers like the one you show here. My opinion is that it is simply a flower that never fully developed for whatever reasons. The greenish yellow coloration is that of an immature flower. Also, if you look at the lip itself, it is poor developed, and not quite fully expanded, suggesting that it never fully opened. I've seen plants with this kind of strange flower and I've tried to locate them the next season without success. My guess is that the next season the plants simply grew normal flowers.

Tom

Hi, I agree with Tom - when I saw the flower my thought was of a two day old flower. They start light as this is and many have the yellow cast. A good 4 or 5 days is required to get the nice pink or even darker color. Even the "dark cherry" clone in earlier posts starts out this way. At the patch I swoon over each spring, if I arrive when the flowers are just opening, I will see hundreds similar to this and when I come back 5 days later they are all pink. During the very first day they open all are white and I have been told of patches of alba form, but when I get there are couple of days later, they are pink. This is the most variable species in color, anything from snow white to various shades of pink to nearly burgundy -they are all spectacular! I would like to see a nice solid yellow stay that way but have not. I have seen a few that are basically white but with a distinct greenish cast.

Ron Burch

okay, great! I knew you two would know! :D
Fabulous info I will pass on to Aimee.
Never ever either having seen one like this and all, well...you know!

>okay, great! I knew you two would know!
>Fabulous info I will pass on to Aimee.
>Never ever either having seen one like this and all, well...you know!

Cyp acaule is the most exciting to find in nature since there is so much variation in color with this species. For me only Cyp pubescens comes close - it is always gorgeous and while all are the same color, no two have flowers of the same shape or size. (Of course, not having been to the islands of Siberia [OK, Tom, some are rightfully Japanese!] or to China :cry: , I can leave out those species, many of which are highly variable)

Ron