Please, never pick or attempt to transplant 
Orchids (or any other) wild plant. 
Click to purchase plants from legitimate plant nurseries.
Many Orchids are endangered:
Orchid habitat is very specialized,
Orchid pollination is very specialized,
Orchid germination is very specialized.
Admire them in the wild and let them live.

Also see Corallorhiza maculata,  Epipactis gigantea, Cypripedium calceolus,and Green Orchids.

Click for Scotty Smith's "Orchids of Colorado".

Blooming information withheld to protect the Orchids.

Calypso Orchids are quite difficult to spot among the other plant life of the forest floor.  The plant is very slender, has only one basal leaf, and although the plant does sometimes occur in patches by the dozens, it often grows singly and scattered. Calypso bulbosa's marvelous symmetry; contrasting magentas, whites, yellows, and purples; and overall delicate flamboyance are haunting.

This wonderful Orchid is found in all Western U. S. states and along the northern tier of states as one heads East.  It is also found in Eurasia; it was first collected in Siberia and in 1753 was described by Linnaeus who named it Cypripedium bulbosum.  William Oakes (1799-1848) renamed it Calypso bulbosa in 1842.

Calypso, the daughter of Atlas, lived a solitary life on an island where she made life very sweet for the occasional sailor washed up on her shores.

Please, never pick or attempt to transplant 
this (or any other) wild plant. 
Purchase plants from legitimate plant nurseries.

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Calypso bulbosa