CYPRIPEDIUM ACAULE. 
STEMLESS MOCCASIN FLOWER. 
NATURAL ORDER, ORCHIDACE/E. 
CYPRIPEDIUM ACAULE, Aiton.—Scape leafless, one-flowered ; leaves two, radical, elliptic-oblong, 
rather acute; lobe of the column roundish-rhomboidal, acuminate, deflexed; petals Jan- 
ceolate; lip longer than the petals, cleft before. Leaves large, plaited, and downy. 
Scape ten to fourteen inches high, with a single lanceolate bract at the base of the large, 
solitary flower. Sepals half an inch long, the two lower completely united into a broad 
lanceolate one beneath the lip. Petals lateral, wavy. (Wood’s Class-Book of Botany. 
See also Gray’s A/anual of the Botany of the Northern United States ; and Chapman’s 
Flora of the Southern United States.) 
HIS species is one of the best known of the moccasin 
S4]| flowers, and has received many popular names. Among 
‘ten may be noted purple Lady’s-slipper, Noah's ark, and 
Dwarf Umbil, as perhaps the best known. Even the botanists 
have multiplied their special names; and while some write 
of it under the title of Cypripedium acaule, as given at the 
head of this chapter, there are others who always refer to it as 
C. humile. The latter name was given to it by Salisbury in the 
“Transactions of the Linnzean Society of London,” and the former 
by Aiton. Of the modern American authors, Barton, Darby, 
and others use Salisbury’s name; while Gray, Chapman, and 
Wood employ the name given by Aiton. The two names must 
have appeared about the same time at the end of the last cen- 
tury. The rule is to take the oldest. Our modern botanists 
are generally careful in deciding these questions, and we pre- 
sume C. acaule will prevail. 
This species of moccasin flower has been known for a long 
time to botanists, and a figure of it appears in Curtis’ “ Botanical 
Magazine” in 1792. The editor says: “We have not figured 
a) 
