224 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
with damp soil in a sheltered corner, though it is not 
more delightful than our own native, Habenaria conopsea, 
with long, thin, pink spikes of delicious fragrance. I can- 
not say as much for a notable American Cypripedium, 
second of its race for damp, rich treatment. 
For with Cypripedeum acaule I have never been able to 
do anything at all. This dwarf species, with two leaves, 
and then a vast, bellying, pink pouch, folded double in the 
middle, is, I believe, the most southerly of the hardy 
Slippers, both in latitude and situation. For it frequents 
woods in the United States, and though Mr. Smith of 
Newry seems to grow it quite happily, with me it has 
never proved really winter-hard, though I have tried 
every possible soil and situation for it. A cold dry 
winter would probably please it a great deal better than 
our muggy, wet ones. Anyhow, in whatever light, warm, 
sandy stuff I put it, Cypripediwm acaule, after flowering, 
goes home to mother earth in the normal course, but 
never comes back again. 
Even more limited has been my experience with Cypri- 
pedium guttatum, a rare and most beautiful species from 
high dank woods all over Asia, through Siberia to Japan. 
I have never collected it, but apparently it haunts the 
mountain forests in the very thickest darkness of the 
pines, where it enjoys the black, cool humus of incalcul- 
able ages. The flower is small and rather hoody in out- 
line, but wonderfully dappled with crimson and purple 
on a white ground. I have tried the plant only once, 
and then with little success. And it is by no means easy 
to get hold of unless one can manage to collect it for 
oneself. 
The lesser American Cypripediums, candidum, parvi- 
florum, and pubescens, are all easy doers and pretty species, 
growing as much as two feet high, with numerous flowers 
that, in pubescens and parviflorum, have yellow slippers— 
