CALYPSO BOREALIS. 

 CALYPSO. 



NATURAL ORDER. ORCHIDACE.E. 



Calypso borealis, Salisbury. — Scape six to eight inches high, bearing a single large flower at 

 top and sheathed with several bracts. Leaf broad-ovate, smooth veined, one to two inches 

 lon'^. Flower near the size of Cypripedium, variegated with purple and yellow, the lip 

 the most conspicuous part, bearing two projecting points beneath the apex. (Wood's Class- 

 Book of Botany. See also Gray's Manual of Ike Botany of the Northern United States.) 



HE curious tribe of Orchidaceae, to which the Calypso be- 

 longs, is not only remarkable for the many odd forms 

 the flowers assume, but also for peculiarities of behavior which 

 have puzzled the most acute observers to explain. In many 

 families of plants there are distinct lines of relationship that can 

 be distincdy traced between one genus or another ; but in 

 Orchidacea) there are often what appear to be huge gaps, and the 

 families seem wholly alone. Modern doctrines demand that all 

 plants should at some time in the past have been evolved from 

 parents but slighdy differing from them. If this be true, the isolation 

 suggests that innumerable species of orchids must have appeared, 

 have lived forages perhaps, and have been destroyed, leaving these 

 very lonely genera as the survivors, as if by some lucky accident. 

 One of these fortunate circumstances is believed by some botan- 

 ists to be the aid which they receive through cross-fertilization by 

 insect aid, and to which plan orchids in general are particularly 

 adapted. It is supposed that by this system of cross-ferdlization 

 a race is rendered more vigorous, and thus able to endure longer 

 than if each individual condnually used its own pollen, or, as it 

 is termed, practises self-ferdlizadon. In many cases, orchids 



