CYPRIPEDIUM 



LADY S-SLIPPER 



The name Cypripedium comes from KiVpis, Kypris, a 

 Greek name of Venus, and pes, pedis. The fancy that the 

 long toe-like pouch of a transformed petal looked like a 

 shoe may have led the maids of Athens to call it Venus's 

 Slipper, for a yellow lady's-slipper grows wild in Europe. 

 The same fancy made the Puritan girls that lived on the 

 •outskirts of the Indian forests call it the moccasin flower. 

 Our common name of Lady's-Slipper is the outgrowth of 

 the religious custom that followed the Revival of Learning, 

 of making over the personal property of Venus to the Virgin 

 Mary, "Notre Dame." So the name Lady's-Slipper is 

 merely a contraction of "Slipper of Our Lady." 



From forests on the islands of the sea, from Java, Borneo, 

 Ceylon and Japan, as well as from India, Mexico and 

 South America, members of this family are brought to the 

 hothouses of Europe and America, and burst out into 

 blossoms of every conceivable shade of purple, crimson, 

 rose and yellow, white and brown and green, every colour 

 except blue, which is denied to the orchids. 



There are at least forty species in tropical and temperate 



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