The yellow lady’s slipper is mostly found in mixed hardwood forests. They prefer more basic soil rather than the commonly granitic more acid soils of most of NH and Maine. They thrive in the Connecticut river valley and much of Vermont.

The yellow lady’s slipper grows in shaded areas where it has little competition from other plants. It multiplies mostly from underground stems like the other slippers and forms large clumps. Maiden hair ferns often grow in places where you can find yellow slippers.

Plants are categorized by their flower structures. The yellow lady’s slipper has the same basic structure as the showy lady’s slipper but the sepals and petals are different colors and slightly different shapes. As the flower opens, the interior petals are more exposed. The bold fuchsia pouch is actually a petal evolved to trap insects and help pollination. The vertical large sepal is two sepals that are fused, so is the third sepal behind the yellow pouch. In the yellow slippers, the sepals as well as the side petals, are twisted or curled. In some of the tropical cousins, these sepals are over a foot long.