﻿THE ORCHID REVIEW. [November, 1904. 



United States and Canada from forty to forty-two are found in the Hoosac 

 Valley, including five species of Cypripedium or " Mocassin Flower." 



The " rambles " extended through three seasons, and the authoress 

 describes the plants among their natural surroundings, as she met with 

 them, in a very interesting way. At the end of the work is a classified 

 Appendix of the New England Orchids, with the descriptions, and notes 

 showing the geographical range of the species. And if the information in 

 the body of the work appears rather scattered— as is unavoidable from the 

 nature of the arrangement— there is a very copious index, not only to the 

 Orchids, but to other details, so that anyone seeking information about 

 any particular species, or other object of interest mentioned in the work, 

 can turn to it at once by means of the index. 



The photographic illustrations are excellent, and those executed in 

 colours by the three-colour process are so graphic that no one could possibly 

 fail to identify them. The photographs were taken, part by Miss Katherine 

 Lewers, and part by the authoress, the colouring being done by the latter. 

 The frontispiece shows a charming group, in colour, of the pink Mocassin- 

 flower, Cypripedium acaule, which is again figured on a later page, showing 

 the details of the flower. Opposite page 78 is a picture showing a large 

 colony ot the white-petalled Lady's Slipper, C. Reginae, which plant is 

 figured larger at page 24 (both in colour), and the authoress remarks : "Few 

 poets have ever sung the praises of the Queen of the Mocassin-Flowers, 

 although a lovelier flower never beckoned to poetic fancy." Underneath 

 the former picture is inscribed : — 



" ' Rushes tilting their burnished spears, 

 These are her courtly cavaliers. 

 Heart of my heart, we forswear the rose, 

 We have been where the lady slipper grows: 



Clinton Scollard, In the Heart of June r 

 The authoress remarks that the mocassin flowers do not appear to 

 multiply in many swamps. " For years now I have noticed large groups 

 of the showy Lady's Slippers growing in Rattlesnake Swamp, near Lloyd 

 Spring, and I can find little increase in the number of plants, or the size of 

 the old snarl of roots. In fact, they seem to be diminishing in numbers. 

 There is an old colony in this region that has stood for about seventy-five 

 years, much the same in size, on the authority of the old inhabitants of this 

 neighbourhood. It stands to-day among the shrub-like willows and swamp 

 maples, at the foot of little scrub pines and dwarf double spruces, hidden 

 from the sight of travellers in the path by a prostrate tree-trunk and decay- 

 ing primaeval pine stump. I observed this colony years ago, and this season 

 it appeared the same to me, occupying a space about two feet square. I 



