If you like to hike, Penn National offers a lot of great areas that are on our doorstep or close by.  On Mother's Day, we went on a hike on the Appalachain Trail.  Along the walk, we discovered a large cluster of Pink Lady Slippers. Sometimes you will see one or two but this was a whole cluster.  Keep an eye out for them now.  Here is some interesting facts about them.

The Pink Lady's Slipper is a wildflower in the Orchid Family. They are endangered in some areas because they take a long time to grow, and because people collect them. This plant has only two leaves. They are green and branch out from the center of the plant. A single flower stalk also grows from the center.

This wildflower also needs help from bees. Its closed flower means that only a strong insect, like a bumble bee can push its way inside. The flower smells sweet, so the bee is tricked into thinking it holds nectar. When the bee gets inside it not only finds no nectar, but it realizes it is trapped. It cannot get back out the way it got in. The bumble bee explores and finds a new way to squeeze out of the flower. To do so, it must push past a part of the flower called a stamen. The bee gets out, but it also gets covered with pollen that was on the stamen.

If the bumble bee gets tricked again by another Pink Lady's Slipper, it will deliver pollen from the first flower, and get covered with pollen again by the new flower. The bee may do this several times before it figures out to avoid Pink Lady's Slipper. The bumble bee gets nothing out of the relationship. Without the bee's help, the plant could not make new seeds

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