CrPRIPEDIUM. 



species, all of which tend to the conclusion that the individual plants 

 comprising them must, at one time, have existed in greater numbers, and 

 have been spread over a much larger area than they at present occupy 

 in a wild state, and that a gradual process of extinction has been as 

 surely in operation here as it has been with more primitive types 

 in other Natural Orders that are now become only subjects for the study 

 of the geological botanist, although, of course, the epoch of final extinc- 

 tion may yet be far remote, and the race may be preserved indefinitely 

 by the hand of Man. Paradoxical as this may appear to the horticul- 

 turist habituated to regard the Cypripedes as being among the easiest 

 of orchids to propagate, the following considerations will go far to show 

 that the statement here offered rests upon a good foundation. Although 

 the Cypripedes are still spread over large portions of the earth's surface 

 both in the eastern and in the western hemisphere, the included 

 species have, almost without exception, retreated to stations that are 

 extremely restricted in area, and frequently isolated and remote from 

 each other ; that while some species are still found to be abundant 

 in their known habitats, and have been and are still being imported 

 into Europe in quantity, it is very different with other species ; for 

 example — the habitat of the beautiful Cypripedium Fairieanum is 

 practically unknown, and all the existing plants in cultivation have 

 been derived from the three or four that were first casually imported. 

 Two plants only of C. superbiens that appeared accidentally among 

 importations of C. barbatum are believed to be the progenitors of 

 all at present known, and it is quite uncertain whether the species 

 still exists in a wild state. C. Mastersianum has been but once imported, 

 and its habitat is unknown to science. C. tonsum was sent to us in 

 company with C. Curtisii unknown to its discoverer, who informs us 

 that the last-named is quite rare, while its near ally C. ciliolare, although 

 somewhat more plentiful, has retreated to a remote corner of the Philip- 

 pine Islands. G. purpuratum has become almost extinct as a wild 

 plant in Hongkong, and it is fast disappearing before the pressure of 

 population on the Chinese mainland. The Cypripedes of South 

 America present a similar phase in their history. C. Boissierianum, 

 one of the first species discovered on that continent, has been found 

 only in a sequestered valley high up on the Andes of Peru, while 

 thousands of miles distant from that lonely spot, on the Roraima 

 Mountain in British Guiana, C. Lindleyanum and C. Klotzschianum 

 have their home ; and still further remote from either, on the Organ 

 Mountains of southern Brazil, C. vittatum occurs and nowhere else. 

 Nor are there instances wanting among the hardy Cypripedes to prove 

 that the same process of extinction is also in operation. Our native 

 C. Calceolus has become virtually extinct in this country as a wild 

 plant, although, owing to its extensive distribution over central Europe, 

 it is still comparatively abundant in some spots, while in others it is 



