CYPRIPEDIUM. 
their precedence threatened by the prior claim of a title so undescrip- 
tive, dull, pallid, and general as that of C. hirsutum. Yet so it was; 
the royal Queen-slipper of rose and white, with her comfortable round- 
faced segments of snow, and her deeply-blushing swollen lip of pink, 
may originally have borne a name more applicable to some insignificant 
plant under the shadow of C.-parviflorum. Her glory, none the less, 
continues ; stout and leafy stems of 3 feet high in moist rich ground, 
earning our special gratitude, no less by their own tropical fullness, 
but also by producing their rotund Slippers, lonely or twin, later in 
midsummer, when the others of their race are nearly all gone. It 
only that lush folded foliage had not been hairy, so to enable the 
eyeless Miller of long ago to leap first into an empty field with so 
inadequate and unfeeling a description as “hirsute” for a beauty 
which subsequent authorities have ransacked the depths of their 
enthusiasm to crown with names sufficiently glorious ! 
C. hirsutum of catalogues comes under C. parviflorum. 
C. japonicum is a curious species from the mountain woods, with 
stems of some 8 inches or more, and big solitary slippers of apple 
green with rosy lip, carried high above a single pair of corrugated 
leaves that are cut across their ends in a straight line (like ’Arriet’s 
toes, as square as a nangkerchief), as if something had nibbled them 
off together when they were rolled up in bud. 
C. Knighiae grows only some 2 or 3 inches high, with one pair of 
oval leaves, and then a cluster of small dark brownish-purple flowers, 
their folded lips being varied with purple and green. (Medicine Bow 
Mountains of Wyoming.) 
C. luteum, on the contrary, is a superb Asiatic splendour, from 
copses and wood-edges on the borders of China and Tibet, and also 
on the rims of the mountain streams in carbonate of lime. It is a 
newcomer in cultivation, and may best be described asa more fluffy- 
stemmed version of C. hirsutum with blossoms wholly of deep clear 
yellow, with a few spots on the lip. It is as yet unproven, except as 
to its absolute hardiness ; but its stalwartness and stature and habit 
leave no reasonable room for doubt that under reasonable conditions 
of rich culture it will easily take its place beside C. hirsutum as soon 
as anybody is able to afford it. See Appendix. 
C. macranthon is very difficult to decipher. It is a native of Mid- 
Russia, and has a leafy stem of 8 inches or more, and then one large, 
hooded flower after the description of C. Franchetii, all of rose and 
crimson veinings on a white ground, the lip being wholly of a carmine 
blush, pulled in at the mouth and longer than the petals, which are 
oblong egg-shaped ending in a point. It will, no doubt, be quite easy 
261 
