TIE INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER. 



SEPTEMBER, 1866. 



LADIES' SLIPPERS. 



BY SHIRLEY HIBBERD. 



(With Coloured Plate of Cypripedium VeitcManum.) 



The ladies' slippers are at once the least interesting of all 

 known orchids with those who cultivate solely with a view to 

 their decorative uses, and the securing' of special variations from 

 types ; but the most interesting to those who give attention to 

 organic structure, and physiology, and botanical distinctions. 

 While both parties rejoice in their exquisite beauty, the first is 

 oftentimes wearied with their stubborn adherence to settled 

 forms and colours, and the apparent impossibility of altering 

 their forms by hybridization, the philosophic observer finds in 

 them solutions of problems in phytology, and exceptions to 

 the prevailing details of orchid structure that render them per- 

 petually entertaining and attractive. In common with the 

 majority of orchids now in cultivation, they have not long 

 enjoyed the favour of cultivators, for the simple reason that 

 until lately very few were known. One of them, the common 

 ladies' slipper, C. calceolus, is a native of Britain, though 

 very rarely to be found growing wild at the present day; 

 and of all the rest it may be said that we have so recently 

 become acquainted with them that very much pertaining to 

 their history has the charm of novelty added to peculiarity of 

 structure. In the Hortus Kewensis, of 1810, only six 

 species of Cypripedium are entered as being then cultivated in 

 the Royal Gardens, and they are all (with the exception of 0. 

 calceolus) hardy North American species, named respectively 

 parvijlorum, pubescens, spectabile, Jmrnile, and arietinum. In 

 Sweet's Hortus Britannicus, 1830, eleven species are entered, 

 and these again are all hardy English and American kinds, 

 except two — namely, C. venustum and C. insigne, natives of 

 India, and originally obtained from Nepaul — the first in 181 6, 

 the second in 1819. In Don's Hortus Gantabrigiensis, 1845, 

 vol. x. — NO. II. G 



