44 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



to undertake expensive and dangerous expeditions into the 

 Amazonian wilds in order to obtain the showy Lady's slipper 

 (C. kirsutum ) , the flower would doubtless be a prized and 

 honored inmate of every orchid house. But as it can be pro- 

 cured at no more trouble than a walk of a mile or two 1 to the 

 nearest wooded swamp, and with no more risk than a few mos- 

 quito bites, this noble bloom is left to blush unseen in its native 

 mossy haunts. 



The showy Lady's slipper is certainly the largest and 

 handsomest flower of the genus, but the stemless Lady's slipper 

 (C. acaule) is a good second. One day in June, in a pine wood 

 on the banks of the Ottawa River in Eastern Ontario, I 

 came on some plants of this species growing among the 

 juniper bushes, bracken, and sarsaparilla that formed the 

 sparse underbrush. There were about a dozen vigorous plants, 

 all in bloom, scattered over an area of five or six hundred square 

 feet. The blossoms exhibited a considerable color variation, 

 the lahellums of some being tinted and lined with the rich rose, 

 or pink characteristic of the species, while others were decided- 

 ly pale, and almost anaemic in appearance. Searching farther, 

 to my delight I came on a specimen of that rarity, a pure wdiite 

 C. acaule with pale greenish-yellow petals. It was a fine well- 

 grown plant, and the beautiful translucent blossom hung in its 

 dark green setting like a tiny opalescent lantern. It was the 

 shrine to which I made numerous pilgrimages that summer, but 

 it failed to attract the bee necessary for its polination, for it 

 did not set seed. The next year the lovely blossom appeared 

 again, and I managed to photograph it as it grew. The 

 monochrome rendering of the camera lacks, of course, the 

 subtile delicate tints of the original, but I am glad that I se- 

 cured even this poor record of the flower, for shortly after, 

 a falling tree destroyed the plant, and I have since sought in 

 vain for another like it. 



