THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 2 g 



nity of proving Mr. Allen's hypothesis, especially if he studies 

 the plants as they grow. 



Whether a Lady's Slipper comes from New England, Sibe- 

 ria, or the Tropics, its lip, or labellum, as this part is usually 

 called, is its most picturesque feature, and I do not think that 

 any one who ever saw that of C. acaule could soon forget it. A 

 countryman once described it to me as blue, ignorant of the 

 fact that that is the only color Orchids are not allowed to 

 wear. The botanist Pursh speaks of " its delicate and expres- 

 sive purple," while Barton, in his Flora of North America, calls 

 the petals "siskin green," and shows a better perception of 

 color than botanists generally do, though, in truth, the sepals 

 and petals vary as much as the lip, and are often of a deep 

 purplish or reddish brown. All flowers of a pink hue exhibit 

 white varieties, and C. acaule is not uncommonly met with in 

 this garb, as in the Franconia Valley ; Essex Co., Mass. ; Knox 

 and Penobscot Cos., Maine; and in the last-named State Miss 

 Kate Furbish discovered and reported in the Amcrica7i Nat- 

 uralist two perfect blossoms growing back to back on the 

 same plant — a freak repeated the following year in the White 

 Mountains. Meehan, in Native Flowers and Ferns* gives a 

 plate representing a plant with two buds. This species is as 

 variable in size as in color. T. W. Higginson, in Outdoor 

 Papers characterizes it as " high bred," and says he never can 

 resist the feeling that each specimen is a rarity, even when 

 he finds a hundred to an acre. 



In early springs, this Lady's Slipper sometimes appears the 

 first week in May in Southern Maine. June I has been sent 

 me, on good authority, as the average date for Essex Co., 

 Mass. Thoreau, giving a specific date with his well-known 

 dictum, "Cypripedium not due till to-morrow," expected it at 

 Concord on the 20th of May, and it is about that date when I 



* 2d Series. 



