l8 9 x -] Open Letters, 241 



OPEN LETTERS. 



The home of Calypso. 



Some years ago, while making a botanical exchange with Prof. W. 

 W. Bailey, the poet-botanist of Rhode Island, I was accused by him 

 of prodigality, because I sent him so many specimens of Calypso bo- 

 realis. But I could then afford to be prodigal, for I was located in 

 the very court of the goddess, viz:- the cedar region of northern Ver- 

 mont. 



Two years ago I met, at his summer home under the'shadow of Mt. 

 Lafayette, the genial author, botanist and world-wide traveler, Dr. 

 Prime. To him I boasted that in half a day I could gather, in Cale- 

 donia Co., Vt., fifty specimens of Calypso. He thought that, in Essex 

 Co., he could, in the same length of time, gather a hundred. The 

 two counties are adjacent, and cold, cedar swamps abound in both, 

 kven there it must be reckoned as a very rare plant; but I have won- 

 dered if, in any other state, it is as little rare. It is found in Maine, 

 on the Mohawk, in Wisconsin and Minnesota, in Oregon and Wash- 

 ington, and in the British provinces. But, if one may judge by the 

 parsimony which most collectors evince in parting with specimens, it 

 is nowhere found as plentiful as in the locality mentioned. 



It prefers the shade of the arbor-vitas. It grows on low, moist 

 ground — not wet ground — but on knolls a foot or so above the 

 swamp level. A mass of dead Sphagnum overgrown by a thick layer 

 of Hypnum is its favorite bed. The corm and roots rest entirely in 

 the moss, seeming to have little or no connection with the underlying 

 humus. Two or more corms are often united, the one of the preced- 

 ] ng year persisting. 



Though searching carefully, I have never found fruit. This must 

 be from lack of fertilization by insects. At the blooming season — 

 May 15 to May 30 — there are few insects abroad. I have never seen 

 one hovering about Calypso. 



The pressed specimen gives but a poor idea of the beauty of the 

 Bower. Pressing usually throws the lip up out of position, giving it a 

 nngent, flaunting, turn-up-your-nose sort of a look, but as it grows, 

 the hp is obliquely pendant— as much so as that of Cypripedium 

 acaule. Dainty beauty is the fitting title. It is comparable only to a 

 br, gnt, modest girl dressed in pink. In Wood's Class-Book of Bot- 

 jyy (1846), the flower is said to be as "large as that of a Cypripedium" 

 tte must have had Cvpripedium arietinum in mind, for no other spe- 

 cies of native Cypripedium has a flower so small. Of forty specimens 

 ot Calypso, the length of lip averages less than three-quarters of an 

 ^ch, and in some it is barely half an inch. The same specimens 

 give, average height of plant, including corm, 4.9 inches: average 

 length of leaf-blade, 1.3 inches: average width, 1.1 in. Of these, three 

 have two flowering stalks, apparently from the same corm. 



borne stations in Vermont where Calypso was formerly found are 

 known to be exhausted owing to clearing of the woodland, but there 

 W comparatively little danger of its extinction in the region of which 

 1 speak. In spite of its pink perianth, it is hard to find, and an ex- 

 pert collector might pass it by unseen. Moreover, manv of its haunts 

 ar e likely to be left in timber perpetually. So I think that northern 



