YELLOW 



if it be late in the year we long to know the flower of which this 

 rich foliage is the setting. To satisfy our curiosity we must re- 

 turn the following May or June, when we shall probably find that 

 a slender scape rises from its midst bearing at its summit several 

 bell-shaped flowers, which, without either high color or fragrance, 

 are peculiarly charming. It is hard to understand why this 

 beautiful plant has received no English name. As to its generic 

 title we cannot but sympathize with Thoreau. " Gray should 

 not have named it from the Governor of New York," he com- 

 plains ; " what is he to the lovers of flowers in Massachusetts? 

 If named after a man, it must be a man of flowers. . . . 

 Name your canals and railroads after Clinton, if you please, but 

 his name is not associated with flowers. ' ' 



C. umbellata is a more Southern species, with smaller white 

 flowers, which are speckled with green or purplish dots. 



YELLOW LADY'S SLIPPER. WHIP-POOR-WILL'S SHOE. 



Cypripedium pubescens. Orchis Family (p. 17). 



Stem. About two feet high, downy, leafy to the top, one to three- 

 flowered. Leaves. Alternate, broadly oval, many-nerved and plaited. 

 Flowers. Large, yellow. Perianth. Two of the three brownish, elon- 

 gated sepals united into one under the lip ; the lateral petals linear, wavy- 

 twisted, brownish ; the pale yellow lip an inflated pouch. Stamens. 

 Two, the short filaments of each bearing a two-celled anther. Stigma. 

 Broad, obscurely three-lobed, moist and roughish. 



The yellow lady's slipper usually blossoms in May or June, 

 a few days later than its pink sister, C. acaule. Regarding its 

 favorite haunts, Mr. Baldwin* says: "Its preference is for 

 maples, beeches, and particularly butternuts, and for sloping or 

 *** hilly ground, and I always look with glad suspicion at a knoll 

 J\ covered with ferns, cohoshes, and trilliums, expecting to see a 

 clump of this plant among them. Its sentinel-like habit of 

 choosing ' sightly places ' leads it to venture well up on moun- 

 tain sides." 



The long, wavy, brownish petals give the flower an alert, 

 startled look when surprised in its lonely hiding-places. 



C. parviflorum, the small yellow lady's slipper, differs from 



* Orchids of New England. 

 124 



. 



