56 FAMILIAR FLOWERS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 



where else for two miles around has always proved 

 useless. Nothing is daintier or more beautiful than 

 the color effect of this graceful blossom among the 

 gray rocks of a hillside pasture. The flower is in its 

 prime about the 1st of June, and is nearly always 

 found beside some lichen-covered rock in the com- 

 pany of young, velvety mullein leaves which have 

 just pushed themselves above ground. 

 Mocoason Flower, ^he pink moccason flower is anoth- 

 Cypripedium er One of tliose exclusive characters 



which prefers the limitations of some 

 moist and shady locality ; it can not be found, as the 

 violet is, under a variety of conditions. The flower 

 is very haiidsome ; in fact, it does not look like an 

 ordinary wild flower, but rather like an expensive, 

 cultivated orchid. I never found it, "as Gray sug- 

 gests, under evergreens, but among the withered 

 leaves that lie under birch, beech, poplar, and maple. 

 But this is a matter of individual experience which 

 may be added to some other quite different ones ; it 

 only points to the fact that Nature is not always 

 regular in her habits. The point of beauty in the 

 flower is its crimson-pink pouch or sac, which is 

 delicately veined with a deeper pink, and its purplish 

 brown and green sepals and petals. The two light- 

 green leaves are parallel-ribbed, but otherwise in 

 appearance are like those of the lily-of-the-valley. 



