Habitat & Endangerment

The ram’s head lady’s slippers like the same environment as the yellow slippers. They grow in mixed hardwood forests in heavy shade. Like other slippers, the ram’s head slippers grow in clumps. We counted about 60 ram’s head slippers in one clump at this site.

The ram’s head lady’s slipper is critically endangered. We do not know of any other site in the state of New Hampshire and Vermont. Unfortunately, this site is within a foot of an active logging road.

Flowering Plant

Of all the slippers, the ram’s head slippers are the smallest. These slippers grow to only about 10 to 12 inches tall. Its flower is about the size of a US quarter. With its low hanging strawberry shaped pouch and pointy sepals and side petals, the overall shape of the flower looks like the head of a powerful ram that is ready to charge.

Plants are categorized by their flower structures. The ram’s head 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. The bold fuchsia pouch is 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 pouch.

From the top of the picture, there is the ovary and the male anther with a mass of sticky pollen. The female stigma hides behind the staminode and is invisible in this picture.

The ram’s head lady’s slippers are covered with hairs that can irritate skin.