202 THE PLANT WOELD 



is vague. It will be observed that the shapes of the leaves, flowers and 

 roots were of great importance to the ancients, just as to the writer of 

 today. 



The leaves of our Cypripediums of North America and Northern 

 Europe are plicate like the foliage of the hellebore. The ancients, 

 therefore, for centuries considered the species of lady's slippers as 

 false hellebore or Indian poke ( Veratrum viride ) or Veratrum album of 

 Europe. This plant is found in swamp-lands in company with our 

 Cypripediums and is often confused with them until the flowers are 

 about to unfold. The first name of the lady's slippers appears thus to 

 have been liellehorine, signifying false hellebore. Caspar Bauhin in his 

 Pinax, 187, designates a species of Cypripedium as "Helleborine Calceolus" 

 signifying "bastard hellebore with a round flower," There appears to 

 have been a species of wild white eUebore or niesivurf, goose nest, known 

 to Galen and Dioscorides. The plant is described as producing broad 

 plicate leaves like eUebore save that they were smaller, and were parallel 

 ribbed like the leaves of plantain or gentian. The flowers hung down 

 from the stalk and were of a white color, hollow in the middle, with small 

 yellow spots. After the flower fades there come thick husks, or pods, 

 containing small seed like sand. The roots of these species were full 

 of sap, had a thick rind of a bitter taste, and reminded the ancient 

 herbalists of a goose nest, since they were thready strings snarled or 

 tangled together. This plant grew in moist meadows, and in dark 

 shadowy places in June and July. 



Some writers among the ancients thought helleborine like hellebore 

 only in virtues, and not in fashion of flowers. The error, however, was 

 known to both Galen and Dioscorides, who did not attribute any of the 

 properties of hellebore to helleborine. Epipactis, therefore, is the Greek 

 name for helleborine or false hellebore ; and is the designation for species 

 of the Orchis family under the genus Epipactis. The plicate leaves of 

 Epipactis apparently became later confused with the plicate leaves of 

 Helleborine Calceolus. 



The first records of a lady's slipper appears to have been made 

 intelligently by Dr. Rembert Dodoens in 1616. He describes the Euro- 

 pean yellow species as Calceolus Marianus, Our Lady's slipper. As 

 already explained, Caspar Bauhin designates the same species as Helle- 

 borine Calceolus, or bastard hellebore. The Latin, Calceolus, signifies 

 " shaped like a little shoe," and Marianus signifies " Our Lady, the Vir- 

 gin Mary." Tournefort in 1700 also knew this genus as Calceolus, sig- 

 nifying "Sabot de la Vierge,'' and "Soulier de Notre Dame." In France 

 and Italy to-day these fiowers are known as Sabot de la Vierge, and are 

 dedicated to the Virgin Madonna. 



There are as many as fourteen generic names in the records of the 



