144 THE FLORA OF THE ALPS 
C. calceolus, L., Lady’s Slipper (Pl. 109); flowers soli- 
tary or 2-3, subtended by a leafy bract, lip slipper- 
shaped, yellow spotted with red, sepals brown-purple, 
acuminate. This, one of the most striking of European 
plants, is met with occasionally in stony woods at a 
moderately high elevation, in Switzerland, Jura, Tirol, 
Lombardy, Dauphiny, and Pyrenees, but is nowhere 
abundant. 
Order LXXXVI.—IRIDEE. 
Flowers usually regular; sepals and petals 3 each, all 
coloured; stamens 3; style simple; stigmas 3, often 
dilated; ovary inferior, 3-celled; seed-vessel a 3-celled 
capsule ; leaves springing from a creeping rhizome, corm, 
or bulb, often ensiform. A large order, most abundant 
in the warmer Temperate Zone; no truly alpine species. 
I, CROCUS) 1; 
Flowers solitary or in clusters, large; ovary under- 
ground; stigmas dilated or laciniate; stem 0; leaves all 
radical, springing from a fleshy corm surrounded by 
membranous sheaths. 
C. vernus, Wulf.; flowers few, violet or white, sepals 
and petals elliptic-obovate, concave, stigmas exceeding 
the anthers, bright yellow, denticulate; pastures; Alps 
(calcareous), Jura, Dauphiny, Pyrenees. C. albiflorus, 
Kit.; very similar, but stigmas shorter than the anthers, 
leaves narrower ; Switzerland, Tirol, Carinthia, Salzburg. 
C. nudifiorus, Sm. (Pl. 110); flowers always solitary, 
appearing in the autumn (the leaves in the spring), violet, 

