The Midland Naturalist 
PUBLISHED BI-MONTHLY FROM THE BIOLOGICAL 
LABORATORIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 
Vol, I. AUGUST, 1909, No. 3, 
Ecology of a | Certain Orchid. 
By EDWARD 1 GREENE. 
The plant I have in mind is Cypripedium acaule, distinctly a 
noteworthy member of its family, rather unique even in so showy 
and beautiful a genus, on account of two large basal leaves from the 
midst arises its naked stem, almost too slender to support strongly 
its one large purple odorous flower; and the plant, is withal, some- 
thing of a rarity. In the vast prairie regions lying to the southward 
of Lake Michigan there must be a number of botanists of the 
younger generation, I think, who never saw this Cypripedium 
growing. I myself who, within the last forty years have botanized 
on foot some thousands of miles on the prairies and in the wood- 
land belts that skirt them in Indiana, Illinois, southern Iowa and 
southern Minnesota, never yet met with it in these districts. 
I can not imagine that even a child, having in him the making 
of a botanist, would forget in after years the place where he first 
found this fine plant, the stemless species of Lady's Slipper. * 
My own first coming upon this Cypripedium acaule happened 
when I was a botanizing child of seven or eight years. It grew on 
a wooded and rather dry slope above the Ashway, or, as they now 
call it, the Ashaway River, very near the village of Ashaway, Rhode 
Island. It was to mea startling discovery; for, used to ransacking 
all pastures and bogs, groves, woods and stream banks during 
several seasons before this, I had supposed I knew already all the 
native pue of my native township of Hopkinton; and here was 
write it in that way advisedly ; for it is certain that — ires e 
A so called not in allusion to slippers of ladies in pe bir 
Ing was oe of tad Lady, that is, the Blessed Mot y bec 
mediaeval t MM versal Latin name of the Old World tyne of this Meus 
was Ca Aietan Maria 
* August 16, 1909.—Pages 61 to 80. 
