306 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [OcroBER, 1906. 
beautiful purple flowers, with a white blotch on the disc of the strongly 
four-lobed lip. Well developed heads measure five and six inches across, 
and in rgor one plant developed a leaf seventeen inches long by over six 
inches broad. The history of the species has already been given (O.R. ix. 
p. 20), and a figure has appeared in the Botanical Magazine (t. 7852). M. 
Warpur states that the species generally grows on the prostrate stems of 
species of Pandanus, near the riverside, in the high forest, at an altitude of 
1,000 to 2,000 feet, though sometimes it is found in tufts of Asplenium 
Nidus, on large trees, at a considerable height above the forest floor. It 
succeeds in an intermediate’ temperature, when grown in shallow pans, 
in a mixture of rough peat and sphagnum moss. Although the leaves are 
deciduous, M. Warpur states that the plant is never in a state of complete 
rest, for as soon as the old leaf and spike are open the rhizome begins t0 
push forth new shoots, so that it should never be dried eff. It should be 
well shaded until the leaves are fully developed, when a little more light 
and less water should be given. Under such treatment it is easily grown, 
and is a very distinct and beautiful decorative plant. 
CYPRIPEDIUM CALCEOLUS IN BRITAIN. 
THE Strand Magazine for September contains an interesting illustrated 
article by W. Carter Platts, entitled ‘“‘ Hunting the Slipper: The Rarest 
British Wild Flower.” The author remarks that vaguely and ina general 
way, this largest and scarcest of British Orchids is understood to still 
survive upon the hillsides of a remote corner of Yorkshire dale-land—to wit, 
in Upper Wharfedale—where, amid the wild tangle of lilies, primroses, 
arums and garlic, it hides its charms in the upland thickets of hazel scrub, 
stunted sycamore, and mountain ash which cling for life to the precipitous 
slopes of the savage fells, and here year after year the elusive slipper has 
been sought for with undiminished zest, though generally without succes* 
Some time ago a young man came to reside in the district indicated, and 
while rambling in the woods gathering wild flowers found what he termed, 
for lack of better knowledge, a ‘‘ wild calceolaria.” A friend to whom he 
showed it told him what it was, and for twenty years he has doggedly 
searched for another specimen, but without success. A few yeats later 
someone else found a plant on the same hillside and transferred it sa 
garden, where it has since bloomed with gratifying regularity. In 1889 
was found blooming within the shadow of Penyghent, and a yeat later 1 
was found in another direction. A lady meeting with a strange plant ; 
gathered a leaf and sent it to a well-known north country botanist, v “4 
identified it as the Cypripedium in question. An expedition was organs : 
and started in search of the plant, but, alas, the lady’s instinct of locality 
