14 OUR NATIVE ORCHIDS 



of a minute flower beetle have been noticed going in and out 

 for honey, some of which could scarcely walk straight for 

 the sticking pollen, and on all the flowers visited a magnifying 

 glass showed little specks of pollen on the stigma, and on 

 opening the ovary later all the seeds were fertilised. 



A well-known botanist once found one blossom on a 

 stalk with others that had reverted from this grown-together, . 

 irregular type to what we suppose must have been the ances- 

 tral regular type of the orchid progenitors. The two lower 

 sepals were separate, and there were three white petals and 

 no lip, so that the flower looked very like some member of 

 the lily or iris family, to which the orchids are closely allied. 



4. SMALL WHITE LADY's-SLIPPER 



Cypripedium candidum, Willd. (Plate VI.) 



The Small White Lady's-Slipper grows in the bogs and 

 meadows of New York, New Jersey and Minnesota, but not 

 in the New England States. It may be easily recognised, 

 because it is the only other white Cypripedium beside 

 regina, and it could never be mistaken for it, because it is 

 small, less than a foot high, has a solitary blossom, and the 

 two winged petals on either side of the lip are long and 

 wavy-twisted, instead of oval. It blooms in May and June. 

 The three or four leaves are quite narrow and sharply 

 pointed, not much more than an inch wide to their three or 

 five inches in length. They stand more stiffly erect than 

 do the leaves of the Cypripedium regtnes, and sheath the 



