124 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



covered near ^Montreal. Canada, in ISOS, and several plants 

 were sent to London, where they were cultivated as "Chand- 

 ler's Cypripediuin." The flower is a dull mottled, purple and 

 white, with the labellum conical, and the sepals and side petals 

 free to the base, and of a green, brown-pink color. In certain 

 positions, the blossom resembles a ram's head, from which 

 arose the name, arictinuni. The species ranges from Quebec, 

 south to Connecticut and westward from the ]\Iaine woods to 

 Minnesota and the Great Lake region. It has the most limited 

 range of our Xew England species. A few vears ago this 

 species was discovered by the collector. Abbe Delavay, in Yun 

 Xan Province, China. As yet. none of the Rocky Mountain 

 Cypripcd ill Ills have been found in that region. 



Cypripcdiinn rcginac, commonly known as the showy 

 Moccasin Flower, was considered by ^Ir. R. A. Rolfe as the 

 most beautiful species in the world and the most charming 

 among our natives of Xorth America. It was first collected 

 by the botanist, Carnoti, in Canada. He christened it the 

 Canada Lady Slipper, Calccolus Mariaiiiis Canadensis in 1635, 

 in his ^'Canadcnsinin Plantariuin:' Parkinson also described 

 the species as the Greater bastard hellebore, or Lady slipper, 

 in his "Theatre of Plants" in 1740. Twenty-two years later 

 Linnaeus described the same species as a varietal form of the 

 European Yellow Lady Slipper, known as Cypripediuin cal- 

 ceolus. The latter is ahiiost identical with our Xorth American 

 yellow moccasin flowers, C. J.irsiitiiin and C. parrifioruin. 



The Queen of the ^Moccasin Flowers, therefore, was not 

 designated specifically as a species of Cypripediuin until the 

 American botanist, Walter, in 1788, christened it C. reginae 

 in his "Flora of Carolina." In the same year, the European bot- 

 anist, Salisbury, in a paper before the Linnaean Societ)- of Lon- 

 don, christened the species C. speetabile, but the name was not 

 published until 1791. The name reginae refers to the regal 

 or queenly appearance of the flowers, and the name speetabile 



