CYPRIPEDIUM ACAULE. 

 STEMLESS MOCCASIN FLOWER. 



NATURAL ORDER, ORCHIDACE^. 



CYPRIPEDIUM ACAULE, Aiton. — Scape leafless, one-flowered ; leaves two, radical, elliptic-oblong, 

 rather acute ; lobe of the column roundish-rhomboidal, acuminate, deflexed ; petals lan- 

 ceolate; lip longer than the petals, cleft before. Leaves large, plaited, and downy. 

 Scape ten to fourteen inches high, with a single lanceolate bract at the base of the large, 

 solitary flower. Sepals half an inch long, the two lower completely united into a broad 

 lanceolate one beneath the lip. Petals lateral, wavy. (Wood's Class- Book of Botany. 

 See also Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States ; and Chapman's 

 Flora of the Southern United States.) 



HIS species is one of the best known of the moccasin 

 flowers, and has received many popular names. Among 

 them may be noted purple Lady's-slipper, Noah's ark, and 

 Dwarf Umbil, as perhaps the best known. Even the botanists 

 have multiplied their special names; and while some write 

 of it under the title of Cypripedhwz acaule, as given at the 

 head of this chapter, there are others who always refer to it as 

 C. huinih. The latter name was given to it by Salisbury in the 

 "Transactions of the Linnaean Society of London," and the former 

 by Aiton. Of the modern American authors, Barton, Darby, 

 and others use Salisbury's name ; while Gray, Chapman, and 

 Wood employ the name given by Aiton. The two names must 

 have appeared about the same time at the end of the last cen- 

 tury. The rule is to take the oldest. Our m.odern botanists 

 are generally careful in deciding these questions, and we pre- 

 sume C. acaule will prevail. 



This species of moccasin flower has been known for a long 

 time to botanists, and a figure of it appears in Curtis' "Botanical 

 Magazine" in 1792. The editor says: "We havt> not figured 



