1902 Lady's-slipper orchid Cypripedium calceolus
Description and ecological characteristics
This orchid with large, solitary flowers with maroon-brown petals and a pouched yellow lip is found in open woodlands on calcareous soils, usually on north-facing slopes. In the UK all recorded sites appear to be scrubby woods of oak Quercus spp., ash Fraxinus excelsior and hazel Corylus avellana on steep rocky limestone slopes, although in mainland Europe it is found in various types of woodland to altitudes of over 2000 m. The plant is perennial, with stems rising from an underground rhizome.
European status and distribution
Lady’s-slipper orchid Cypripedium calceolus is widely distributed through northern, central, eastern and south-east Europe, westwards to Norway and the south-west Alps and eastwards across Asia to Sakhalin Island on the Pacific coast. It has become rare and threatened over much of its range.
UK status and distribution
Lady’s-slipper orchid Cypripedium calceolus has always been local in the UK, formerly occurring in limestone districts of Derbyshire, Yorkshire, County Durham and Cumbria. Primarily because of collecting by botanists and others, it is now known as a native plant at a single locality in Yorkshire. Until recently only a single individual plant survived, but careful habitat management and artificial propagation under English Nature’s Species Recovery Programme is being used to increase the population in the wild, and the species has been planted at a number of additional locations.
View UK distribution of this species.
Site selection rationale
The single remaining native site for this species has been selected
Site accounts
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Craven Limestone Complex
North Yorkshire
Craven Limestone Complex is the single remaining native site for Lady’s-slipper orchid Cypripedium calceolus. Formerly reduced to a single plant, careful habitat management, together with hand-pollination of the few flowers that appear, and more recently re-establishment of plants from ex-situ propagation, has led to a steady increase in the size of the colony.
Many designated sites are on private land: the listing of a site in these pages does not imply any right of public access.
Please note that the map shows sites where the presence of a feature is classed as ‘grade d’, but these sites are not listed. This is because ‘grade d’ indicates a non-significant presence.