Fox: SPECIES OF CYPRIPEDIUM. 429 



carpels and three to ventral or placenta bearing margins. Al- 

 though these bundles are at first in one ring, they form two 

 rings, one within the other at the level of the emergence of the 

 perianth into segments." By microscopic sections, it was 

 proved, that the stigmatic lobe, composed of thick walled poly- 

 gonal cells, many with nuclei and nucleoli, far from being sin- 

 gle, is "certainly twofold, and perhaps in some species, three- 

 fold." The two or three styles thus seem to be united at their 

 uppermost ends in a median plane. "The column of Cypripe- 

 dium is therefore made up of three stamens and three styles.'' 

 "Of the three stamens, the upper median belongs to the outer 

 row and is developed as the staminode; the other two lateral 

 ones are fertile and belong to the inner row. Of the three 

 ovaries and styles, all remain, but of the three stigmas, the up- 

 per or median one, becomes abortive, while the two lateral ones 

 are joined into one compound lobe." 



Plate XXII I illustrating Cypripedium reginae Walt, shows a 

 distinctly trilobed stigma which was more marked in this spe- 

 cies than in any of the other species examined. 



Monstrosities in this genus have been studied with a view to 

 obtain some light on the question of relationship. Oligom- 

 ery does not offer so great a field, since reduction of the parts 

 of the flower is hardly as frequent as cases of pleomery. An 

 interesting teratological specimen of Cypripedium reginae ^ ^ 

 Walt, was found by Bastin. The plant had two flowers on a 

 single stem, one flower was normal, the other presented curi- 

 ous features. The sepals were distinct, there were three nearly 

 equal petals, all shaped like the sepals, no slipper of course, 

 three anthers, a three lobed stigma and a straight ovary. In- 

 stead of a triangular fleshy body hitherto supposed to represent 

 a third stamen, three stamens were found. This seemed to 

 show a tendency to revert to an ancestral form in which two 

 or three stamens was a typical feature. 



The theoretical antiquity of the genus is apparently based 

 upon the presence of the paired anthers. Darwin quotes Lind- 

 ley as thinking that between the Cypripedinae and the other 

 tribes of the Orchidaceae, a multitude of forms must have been 

 swept away. ^ 2 To him, the proposition seemed tenable that 

 these plants are the "record of a former and more simple state 

 among the Orchids," and adduces a number of reasons. He 

 bases the argument upon the idea that the rostellum among 



(31) Bastin. E. S. Bot. Gaz, <5: 269. 1881. 



(32) Darwin, C. Fertilization of Orchids, 226: 1871. 



