334 Cypripedia. 



swamps upon which it prefers to grow, thereby destroying its roots ? Ex- 

 cessive moisture is fatal to it in cultivation, I know from experience. 



A gentleman wrote me from Canada, that he found it growing with 

 Liliiim Philadelphiaun, and other plants that require a dry, warm soil, but 

 where a cedar or tamarack swamp had formerly been ; and, as that was 

 the only swamp-plant remaining, he inferred, that, like C. pubescens, it could 

 exist without much moisture. 



These little hillocks in the swamps are the favorite haunts of C. acaide 

 as well as of C. arietinum ; and a theory is drawn from this fact to account 

 for their blooming in May. These knolls get heated through long before 

 the ice is out of the swamps ; and I am informed it is not a rare occur- 

 rence to find them in flower with ice in their immediate vicinity. 



C. parviflorum and C. pubescens are both yellow, and very showy. They 

 vary much in intensity of color ; soms baing quite dull, and others lively 

 and brilliant. The brightest I have had came from Canada. C. pubescens, 

 in size, is from two to four times as large as C. parviflorum. 



These two species are abundantly distinct, though in some localities 

 difficult to determine. C. parviflorum is much the rarer of the two, though 

 not generally so considered : it is also fragrant, shorter, and flowers earlier; 

 has a deeper brown-purple perianth ; does not change much in form, though 

 some in size. C. pubescens is generally paler in color, much larger, and is 

 quite changeable in all its parts. 



C. pai viflorum is entitled strictly to but one flower to the stem ; yet Mr. 

 Rand informs me he had a plant of this species under open-air culture, in 

 his garden, which produces three flowers on a single stem. This accidental 

 development occurs in those East-India species which ordinarily have but 

 one flower to the stem also ; for I have this winter seen a large plant of 

 C. insigne, in Mr. Rathbone's greenhouse in Albany, with two or three of 

 its many stems bearing two flowers each. 



Flowers of C. spcctabile are frequently met with of pure white ; and in 

 Otsego County, in this State, blossoms of C. acaule have been found 

 entirely white. 



A specimen of C. parviflorum has been gathered in Schenectady County, 

 in this State, having all the parts of the flower single except the lip, which 

 is double. 



