AN ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY. 3 



they should not be confounded with the real white or 

 showy lady-slipper, which is entirel)^ different. The 

 smaller yellow lady-slipper appears to be verj^ rare in this 

 vicinity. I have collected it only in Springfield, Mass., 

 and have received plants from Vermont. The greater 5'el- 

 low lady-slipper, while rare enough, is j^et abundant in cer- 

 tain localities not alwa5's eas)' to find and not always made 

 known by the finders. 



On the 2ist of May, in company with a friend who is an 

 expert photographer, I succeeded in re-finding a station of 

 these plants in a wood where several years since, with an- 

 other friend, I got completelj^ turned around and lost. 

 This time fortune favored us, and we managed to keep our 

 bearings and eventually come out of the tangle within a 

 mile or so of our calculations. And after long and careful 

 search we found our plants in flower. 



The plants of this species grow in leaf-mold in rich 

 woods, especially in spots where there is an underlying 

 stratum of small stones or gravel. Plants not in flower so 

 closely resemble young plants of black hellebore ( Vera- 

 trum viride) that it takes a practiced eye to distinguish 

 them ; when in flower there is no mistaking them for any- 

 thing else. For some reason the plants I have found this 

 season are unusually small, and the flowers also are not up 

 to the average in size. Some of them, in fact, are so small 

 that it is hard to believe they are not of the other species (C. 

 p arvMo rum) , th.e smoXl^x yellow lady-slipper. Examina- 

 tion and comparison tend to prove that in everything ex- 

 cept size all the flowers are typical C. pubescens. So I 

 cannot yet claim the other species as a resident, much as 

 I might like to. 



In view of this variation in the size of the flowers in the 

 Species under consideration, an experience we have had 

 with the plants in cultivation may be interesting. Some 

 years since a wild bed in our garden was supplied with a 



