84 Ladies' Slippers. 



separating from them when the fruit is ripe. The frequency of 

 composite organs, and the peculiar individualities of develop- 

 ment of certain parts, especially of the petals and the lip, 

 result in that endless variety of form which render the orchids 

 so strangely attractive and fascinating to botanists, florists, and 

 sight-seers, all of whom are not the less charmed by their 

 beautiful colouring and their exquisite odours. 



In Cypripedium there are several exceptions to. the pre- 

 vailing type of structure, as will be seen on reference to the 

 plate of G. Veitchianum. The topmost piece, which may be 

 likened to a banner, and the striated colouring of which is 

 beautiful beyond all description, that piece is a sepal ; where 

 are the other two ? They are conjoined, and form one, cor- 

 responding in position to the one already likened to a banner. 

 Right and left of the centre are placed two petals, like a pair 

 of wings, and in the centre is the third petal in the form of a 

 pouch or slipper. The elder Darwin saw in this arrangement 

 of parts, and especially in the swollen pouch and eye-like 

 anthers of 0. calceolus, a resemblance to a spider, and in the 

 figure of the plant in the " Botanic Garden " a very spider-like 

 aspect is given to it — in fact, a leetle exaggeration, perhaps, to 

 justify the fancy embodied in the passage in which the flower 

 is celebrated : — 



" So where the humming-bird in Chili's bowers, 

 On murmuring pinions robs the pendant flowers ; 

 Seeks where fine pores their dulcet balm distil, 

 And sucks the treasure with proboscis bill ; 

 Fair Cypbipetjia, with successful guile, 

 Knits her smooth brow, extinguishes her smile ; 

 A spider's bloated paunch and jointed arms 

 Hide her fine form, and mask her blushing charms ; 

 In ambush sly the mimic warrior lies. 

 And on quick wing the panting plunderer flies." 



Canto IV. 501-510. 



That stress should be laid upon the exceptional character 

 of the orchids under consideration will not surprise any who 

 have read the masterly treatise of the living Darwin. He says, 

 " Lindley's last and seventh tribe, including only one genus, 

 Cypripedium, differs from all other orchids far more than any 

 other two do from each other. An enormous amount of ex- 

 tinction must have swept away a multitude of intermediate 

 forms, and left this single genus, now widely disseminated, 

 as a record of a former and more simple state of the great 

 orchidean order." Cypripedium is destitute of a rostellum, all 

 three stigmas being fully developed, but confluent. The 

 anther, which is present and fertile in other orchids, is 

 here rudimentary, sterile, and appears as a shield-like project- 

 ing body deeply notched on its lower margin. The two fer- 



