i6 OUR NATIVE ORCHIDS 



spring, to the woods of England, though one never sees 

 "a thousand at a glance." They add the joy of rarity to 

 their beauty. They are not so rare but that any one might 

 find them in the Eastern woods and thickets and mountain 

 places in the early summer as far south as Virginia, and yet 

 not so common but that each blossom seems a prize. They 

 bloom from May to July. 



Cypripedtum hirsutum has a leafy stem from one to two 

 feet high and oval, pointed leaves, sometimes five inches 

 long and three wide. As its name implies, it is covered with 

 down or hairs. Fluttering from the top of this leafy spire 

 are one or two pale yellow blossoms. Two sepals, the lower 

 one split at the tip and yellowish green and striped with 

 purple, are balanced by two curled and twisted narrow 

 petals of the same colour. In the centre of these ribboned 

 petals hangs a pale yellow pouch (Plate VIII., Fig. 2), one or. 

 two inches in length and spotted with purple. A tuft of 

 white jointed hairs lies inside just at the top, and the triang- 

 ular sterile stamen {A") covers the incurved stigma (C). 



John Burroughs says that there is a heavy oily odour 

 about this orchid. 



Darwin tried the experiment of putting a small bee to 

 work on a blossom of Cypripedium puhescens. "The insect 

 entered by the upper opening and attempted to crawl out the 

 same way, but always fell backward, owing to the margins 

 being inflected. The bee could not creep out through the 

 slit between the folded edges of the labellum, as the elongated, 

 triangular, rudimentary stamen here closes the passage. 



