82 Ladies' Slippers. 



there are thirteen entered, including 0. jpurpuratum, intro- 

 duced from the Malays in 1837, and the beautiful 0. barbatwm, 

 from Mount Ophir, in 1841. Since that date the number has 

 steadily increased, and within ten years past some very notable 

 additious have been made by the introduction of such noble 

 species as Veitchianum, Icevigatum, caudatum, concolor, and 

 others. It must not be supposed, however, that all the species 

 and varieties recorded in the books are valued, or even known 

 to cultivators. With the exception of G. calceolus, which is 

 known by a few — very few — collectors of scarce and curious 

 plants, the hardy species have no place in our gardens, success 

 in cultivating and keeping them having proved so rare as 

 to discourage the most ardent lovers of herbaceous plants. 

 Now and then some spirited trader secures an importa- 

 tion of these plants, but it invariably ends, not in his finding 

 customers for them, nor yet in growing them for his own 

 amusement j he simply loses them, and there ends the specula- 

 tion. But the majority of the tropical species ar.e easily grown 

 and multiplied ; and as they are very various in character, some 

 of them extremely curious, and all of them beautiful, so we 

 meet with some of them wherever exotic orchids are cultivated, 

 even if only on a small scale. The favourites at present are 

 G. insignis, which will thrive in any warm greenhouse ; 0. 

 barbatus, and its varieties ; C. villosum, G. Veitchianum, G. 

 Stonei, and G. caudatum. 



The distinctive character of the Cypripedium must become 

 immediately evident to the most casual observer who has an 

 opportunity of seeing any of the species grouped with examples 

 of other families of orchids. They are terrestrial plants ; they 

 neither produce pseudo-bulbs above the soil, nor send out snake- 

 like aerial roots for prehensile or nutritive purposes. Instead 

 of the great branching spike bearing hundreds of flowers, as 

 in some of the Oncidiums; or the compact panicle towering 

 high above our heads, as in some Yandas ; or the whip-like, 

 arching stem, bearing many great butterfly-shaped fioAvers, as 

 in Phalasnopsis ; or the forest of flowers, making clouds of 

 gold, and amber, and rose, as when the sun sets in glory, 

 which the Dendrobes surprise us with ; we have here flowers 

 that are generally rather sober in colouring, and that are in 

 many cases produced singly ; or when more than one occurs on 

 a stem, the spike is few-flowered. But as every genus has 

 what may be called its accidental characters, by means of which 

 it is identified without the aid of a botanical analysis, we may 

 allow all this to pass in order to take note of the structural 

 peculiarities of these plants. Comparing them with other 

 orchids, it will be observed that the lip is neither like a frill, 

 nor a banner, nor a tongue, nor a hood ; but it is folded so aa 



