134 CALYPSO BOREALIS. CALYPSO. 



would not be able to perfect seeds at all, if they had not the aid 

 of insects in introducing the pollen to the stigma. But again, it 

 has been noticed as singular that though the individual plant may 

 have matured innumerable seeds, yet they rarely grow when in 

 a state of nature, and just about as many plants and no more are 

 found in the same locadons year after year, the plant making but 

 one new tuber in the place of the one decaying from the last 

 season. A locality soon disappears if collectors of wild flowers 

 abound. The seed, therefore, in many cases, is of very little 

 use to the orchid after all the trouble that has been taken to 

 secure for it the supposed best advantage. 



Our Calypso is a good illustration of some of these points. It 

 has no very near relatives, though Linnaeus supposed that it was 

 a Cypripcdiuni, and it is found noticed as Cypripcdiimi boTcale in 

 his works and the works of others of that time. Its real rela- 

 tionship, however, is with Cwlogync, a genus inhabidng the 

 warmer parts of the East Indies. Its closest relations in this 

 country are perhaps Liparis, or Microsfy/is, and we see by this 

 comparison how isolated Calypso must be, especially when we 

 learn that instead of a warm sub-tropical climate, in which most of 

 the Ca:Iooy?ic2irQ found, this one exists only in the extreme north 

 of our country, and Lapland and Russia, in the extreme north 

 of Europe. Again, it is remarkable for being often found only 

 as an isolated plant here and there. The botanist is as likely to 

 find only a single one in a day's walk as a large number to- 

 gether. This isolation has been the subject of some lines by a 

 well-known botanist, Mr. W. W. Bailey, of Providence, Rhode 

 Island, which, as we love to note especially all attempts to place 

 American plants in the " Language of Flowers," are reproduced 

 here : 



" Calypso, goddess of an ancient time, 

 (I learn it not from any Grecian rhyme, 

 And yet the story I can vouch is true,) 

 Beneath a pine tree lost her dainty shoe. 



" No workmanship of mortal can compare 

 With what's exhibited in beauty there, 



