Showy lady’s-slipper, queen lady’s-slipper, cypripède royal

Cypripedium spectabile Salisbury

Plants erect, 21–90 cm. Leaves 3–9, along length of stem, alternate, ascending to spreading; blade broadly elliptic to ovate or elliptic-lanceolate, 10–27 × 5–16 cm. Flowers 1–3(–4); sepals white; dorsal sepal suborbiculate to ovate-orbiculate, 25–45 × 18–42 mm; lateral sepals connate, synsepal 24–42 × 15–37 mm; petals spreading, same color as sepals, oblong to elliptic or ovate-lanceolate, flat, 25–47 × 6–17 mm; lip white, usually suffused around orifice and variably beyond with pale pink to crimson magenta, subglobose-obovoid, 25–53 mm; orifice basal, 18–28 mm; staminode cordiform-ovoid to ovoid-lanceoloid. 2n = 20.

Flowering May--Aug. Coniferous and hardwood fen forests, openings, fen meadows, hillside seeps, meadows, prairies, dune lags, seeping cliffs; mostly 0--600 m; Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr. (Nfld.), N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask.; Ark., Conn., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Ky., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Mo., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., N.Dak., Ohio, Pa., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.