Lady orchid · Orchis purpurea · plant diagram, Ponidzie
What can you recognise before the flower?
Stage 1 of 3 · bud and shoot
Without JavaScript the plate shows the bud stage, and descriptions of all three stages are below.
Our own diagram (an illustration, not a photograph). Scale without units.
Stage 1 of 3 · typically April (towards the end of the month it overlaps with the start of flowering)
What do the leaves near the ground look like, and what has formed at the top of the shoot?
In your notebook: broad, glossy basal leaves without spots, and at the top of the rising shoot tightly packed buds sheltered by narrow bracts. The forest floor is still well lit because the trees have not yet developed their full crowns.
Task without a flower: describe in your own words the shape, gloss and arrangement of the leaves, and whether the shoot stands upright. Do not part the undergrowth — young orchids are easily crushed.
Stage 2 of 3 · typically late April to late May
What in the flower is dark, and what is pale?
In your notebook: the hood of dark sepals contrasts with the pale, broadened lip covered in purple tufts of tiny hairs. The flower lures insects with colour but produces no nectar. Flowers open from the bottom of the spike, so the upper buds may still be waiting.
Task: look from a place where you are allowed to stand. Do not touch the lip or the column — damaging the pollination apparatus will prevent the plant from setting seed.
Stage 3 of 3 · typically June to July
What is left at the top of the shoot after the flower?
In your notebook: the ovaries swell into elongated, ribbed capsules, and the petals dry out and turn brown at their tips. Inside are very numerous, dust-like seeds; to germinate they need specific mycorrhizal fungi.
Task without a flower: look for a stiff, upright stem rising above the undergrowth; the capsules are easy to overlook because they blend into the green of the grasses. Write down only what you can see from the trail.
The access rules apply at every stage. Check the rules for access to the land with its manager, stay on the trail, do not pick or dig up anything, and give at most the region (Ponidzie) in descriptions. Full instructions and a printable card.
Two lines on the left. The longer one is the whole shoot, the shorter one the leaf rosette. They are the same at every stage: the ground, the shoot and the scale do not change. This is the proportion of the drawing, not a measurement of the plant.
Dashed white oval. The place of the inflorescence when no flowers are visible. It means no visible organ, not a lack of data about the plant.
Below the ground line. The underground part is drawn schematically and identically at every stage.
Purple only in the flower. The colour comes from a description in the V2 sources, not from an embedded photograph. It needs checking against a botanist’s documentation.
Counter-plate · Cypripedium calceolus
Lady’s slipper: three stages at once
Nothing to switch here: all the stages stand side by side on one ground line. The stage chosen above is outlined. The scale is shared only by the three lady’s slipper drawings — the heights do not compare the species.
Bud and shoot
Early May
The leaves are elliptical and pleated, strongly veined, and clasp the stem. The bud in the axil of a large bract is shaped like a pointed beak. Habitat: scrub on limestone slopes.
Flowering
Second half of May – June
The lip is yellow and inflated, like a small shoe, against dark, narrow perianth segments. The flower works as a trap for insects, which escape through a narrow exit.
Fruit and capsule
Late June – July
The lip turns brown and withers, and the ovary develops into an oblong, hanging capsule. In summer the shrubs shade the scrub floor heavily.
Our own diagram: an illustration, not a photograph and not an identification key. A rhizome is drawn below the ground line, identical at every stage. Yellow and brown appear only at the flowering stage, based on a description in the V2 sources.
Same stage, two species: bud and shoot
Lady orchid:Broad, glossy basal leaves without spots; at the top of the shoot tightly packed buds in narrow bracts.
Lady’s slipper:Pleated, strongly veined leaves clasping the stem; a single bud in the axil of a large bract, shaped like a pointed beak.
When each stage is typical
Twelve ten-day periods (dekads) from April to July. Dekad I is days 1–10, II is 11–20, III is 21 to the end of the month. The band shows the typical windows from V2, not a forecast for a given year. In the field the stages overlap (one spike can carry buds and open flowers), and the dekads are only an approximation.
Lady orchid
Lady’s slipper
IVVVIVII
bud and shoot (white: usually no flower)
flowering window
fruit and capsule
Lady orchid
Bud and shoot: 1st and 2nd dekad of April. Flowering: 3rd dekad of April to 3rd dekad of May. Fruit: June to July.
Lady’s slipper
Bud and shoot: April to the 1st dekad of May. Flowering: 2nd dekad of May to the end of June (a dekad approximation of “the second half of May – June”, to be checked). Fruit: July.
Choose a date to see which stage is typical for each species.
Wide frame · habitat diagram
Where you are looking from and how much light reaches the undergrowth
The blue ring is a lawful viewpoint: the trail, not the plant’s location. The drawing is a qualitative model, not a map or a photograph; it does not point to any site.
Shrubs in the undergrowth
Patches of light on the undergrowth (in the drawing): 5
Few shrubs. Shafts of light reach the forest floor in several places. V2 describes such a light, open habitat for the lady orchid; the Pińczów Forest District removes encroaching shrubs to protect the orchids from shading.
Many shrubs. Scrub covers the undergrowth and one patch of light remains. A light, open wood and an overgrowing clearing can look similar from a distance yet give plants different conditions. Clearing shrubs is work for land managers, not a task for visitors.
The number of patches is the number of drawn elements, not a measurement of light intensity.
shaft of direct light (diagram)
shrubs in the undergrowth (the “many” state)
pale limestone fragments by the path (diagram)
viewpoint on the trail (symbol, no coordinates)
trail; the dashed line above it is the boundary, do not go beyond
plant symbol; not the location of any specimen
Instructions for observing without collecting
Five verbs
Check
The rules for access to the land with its manager before you set out. The presence of orchids in a source does not mean you may enter their site.
Stand
On the trail or in a place where you are allowed to be. Do not step into the undergrowth for a better shot.
Look
At the light: does the forest floor have patches of sun, or is it overgrown with dense shrubs. At the rock: pale fragments of limestone or gypsum and shallow, warm soil. At the plant: leaves, bud, flower, capsule, or nothing above the ground.
Record
Doubts about a name are more valuable than quick certainty. In a public photo caption give at most the region (Ponidzie), with no coordinates or access routes.
Leave
Do not pick, dig up or touch the flower. Keep the exact spot for an authorised nature custodian if they ask for documentation.
Habitat observer’s card · Ponidzie
To print and fill in with a pencil. The page saves nothing.
Pencil sketch: a leaf, a bud, a lip or a gap in the crowns. Without touching the plants.
Date and notes
Limits
What this page does not do and what changed from V2
Limits
The drawings are our own diagrams, not photographs and not a key for identifying the species. One feature is not enough to recognise a plant.
The dekad windows are the typical windows from V2, approximated to ten-day periods. They change with the year and the place. They are not a forecast and not a promise of flowering on a given day.
The stage features, windows and biological descriptions were taken over from V2 and from the sources below. A botanist has not confirmed them; that remains to be done.
There are no coordinates, access routes or points for individual plants. The viewpoint and the plant symbol on the habitat diagram do not indicate any place.
This page does not grant permission to enter any land. Outside the April–July range we have no stage data here, which does not mean the plant is absent.
What was removed from V2
The calculator that shifts the window by a dekad. The shift was an exercise assumption without data. It has been replaced by a simple check of a date against the typical windows.
A journal in browser storage (key atlas-v2-101). In its place there is one printable card. V3 neither reads nor writes this key; you can delete any old entries in your browser settings.
An embedded photograph from Wikimedia Commons. The page is meant to work offline, so only a link to the file remains, without embedding.
What was kept
Data on the three stages of both species, the dekad windows, three questions from the trail (light, rock, trace), the rules for being on site, the printable card, links to sources.
Sources
Links taken over from V2. In this step they were not reopened or checked again; they need editorial verification.
LIFE project, Ponidzie landscape parks:life.pk.kielce.pl — flowering time, habitat, absence of nectar in the lady orchid.
Lasy Państwowe [State Forests], lady’s slipper under special protection:lasy.gov.pl — general flowering window of the lady’s slipper (second half of May – June), not a local seasonal report.
Muzeum Nadwiślańskie [Vistula Museum], common lady’s slipper:rzadkierosliny.mnkd.pl — flower structure and habitat; for the Lublin region it gives May to early June, which shows regional differences.
Nadleśnictwo Pińczów [Pińczów Forest District], active protection of orchids:radom.lasy.gov.pl — species of Ponidzie, the threat of overgrowth and protective measures.
Comparison photograph from France (not embedded): Hans Hillewaert, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (status as given in V2). It does not show a site in Ponidzie. It is solely a link for viewing a real flower.