BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 29, 1938 
Vol. 7, No. H 
CYPRIPEDIUM CALCEOLUS 
yar. PUBESCENS 
BY 
Donovan S. Correll 
The taxonomic and nomenclatorial history of our 
yellow Cypripediums ( Cypripedium parviflorum and C. 
pubescens) is most perplexing because it is burdened with 
the conflicting opinions of both European and American 
botanists. Beginning in 1791 (Trans. Linn. Soc. 1: 77) 
with Salisbury’s first segregation of a North American 
yellow Cypripedium from the Eurasian C. Calceolus L., 
botanists have been confused as to the true status of our 
so-called species and varieties. Salisbury’s basis for sep¬ 
arating C. parviflorum from C. Calceolus was concerned 
mainly with the shape of the staminodes. Later, when 
Willdenow (Hort. Berol. 1 (1804) t. 13) established C. 
pubescens as being different from C.parviflorum, he relied 
for the most part on differences which he noted in the 
lobes of the column. In making this segregation, Will¬ 
denow opened the way for later botanists to invent nu¬ 
merous varietal and specific names for the yellow Cypri¬ 
pediums of North America. W. J. Hooker (Bot. Mag. 57 
(1830) t. 3024) disagreed with Willdenow concerning his 
basis for the separation of C.parviflorum and C.pubescens, 
saying that he found the lobe of the column “to be the 
same in both, or to possess only occasionally trifling dif¬ 
ferences.” Hooker proposed instead that 
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DEC % 1938 
