MICROSPERME.E 295 



Lady's Slipper Orchid (Cypripedium Calceolus), 



Amongst the British Orchids the choicest gem and 

 truly exotic in its size and large flowers, the Lady's 

 Slipper is so named from the form of the large inflated 

 lip. The first Latin name is a rendering of this in 

 Greek from Cypris, a synonym for Venus, and podion, 

 a sock or slipper. In bygone days the name Venus 

 was superseded by Lady when a desire was fostered 

 to replace pagan customs and words by those which 

 were of Christian origin. The name Calceolus is 

 also Latin for slipper, and Dodonaeus called the plant 

 Calceolus marianus, which again attests the passion 

 in mediaeval times for substituting for pagan apella- 

 tions names of a religious nature. 



Only found in N. Britain, this beautiful species, 

 much sought after by the collector and the hawker, is 

 solely preserved to-day by the owners of the property 

 on whose estate the Lady's Slipper is still to be 

 found, though in decreased numbers. 



Dense woods and plantations are the habitat of 

 this orchid, which was always a rarity, and to-day is 

 all but extinct, owing to the causes mentioned. 



The plant is downy. The rootstock is creeping, 

 fibrous. The stem is leafy. The leaves are three to 

 four, large, ovate, oblong, ribbed, with a long narrow 

 point, the upper ones lance-shaped. 



The flowers are yellowish-brown, large, showy, 

 one or two, or solitary, borne on long flower-stalks. 

 The bracts are leaf-like. The outer segments or sepals 



