Biology Homework of my 14 year old Great Grandma, rural Kentucky 1924
The Lady Slipper
As I was walking through the storehouse of Nature, I viewed a gorgeous flower existing all alone in a little spot.
It was a beautiful yellow Lady Slipper, about two feet in height growing on the bank of a small silver stream. As I looked at it, it’s rays of gold almost blinded my eyes, for the sun was just peeping through the trees, its long green leaves had a number of dew drops upon their surface, which made them bow their heads like arched gates or a bridge bending over a stream.
I noticed also that it required lots of moisture and rich dirt, a few of its long roots were appearing through the soil which showed that it was a flourishing flower.
The Lady Slipper is classed as an orchid or perennials. It stores up food for next year’s blossom and seeds by means of its leaves, this is the way in which it produces more flowers. Its long leaves and parallel veins prove that it is a monocot. It has one petal or rather they are mingled together, three stamens and three sepals.
This flower is very rare in North America owing to the people destroying the flower, they pull the roots and leaves, therefore the plant is entirely destroyed and it became rare, but it grows in every temperate part of the globe except Africa.
It gets it’s name from being the shape of the labellum.
As you see, I have now finished the description of this beautiful flower, Will you help in protecting it for the future generation?
Callie Elmore.