206 MY STUDIO NEIGHBORS 



The mechanism of their cross-fertilization is the 

 same in all, with only slight modifications. 



The most common of the group, the C. acaule, 

 most widely known as the moccasin-flower, whose 

 large, nodding, pale crimson blooms we so irre- 

 sistibly associate with the cool hemlock woods, 

 will afford a good illustration. 



The lip in all the cypripediums is more or less 

 sac-like and inflated. In the present species, C. 

 acaule, however, we see a unique variation, this 

 portion of the flower being conspicuously bag-like, 

 and cleft by a fissure down its entire anterior face. 

 In Fig. 1 6 is shown a front view of the blossom, 

 showing this fissure. The "column" (B) in the 

 cypripedium is very distinctive, and from the 

 front view is very non-committal. It is only as . 

 we see it in side section, or from beneath, that we 

 fully comprehend the disposition of stigma and 

 pollen. Upon the stalk of this column there ap- 

 pear from the front three lobes — two small ones 

 at the sides, each of which hides an anther at- 

 tached to its under face — the large terminal third 

 lobe being in truth a barren rudiment of a former 

 stamen, and which now overarches the stigma. 

 The relative position of these parts may be seen 

 in the under view. 



The anthers in this genus, then, are two, instead 



