NAT. ORDER. 
Orc/iidece. 
CYPRIPEDIUM INSIGNE. LARGE LADIES' SLIPPER, 
Class XX. Gynandria. Order I. Monandria. 
G-en. Char. Lip ventricose, inflated, saccate. Petals four, the under 
one bifid. Column terminating in a petaloid lobe. 
Spe. Char. Scape leafless, one-flowered. Leaves radical, two, 
oblong, obtuse. Lobe of the style roundish-rhomboidal, acumin- 
ate, deflexed. Petals lanceolate, Lip shorter than the petals, 
cleft before. 
Of the most beautiful genus Cypripediuni, no species, perhaps, 
in the world, excels the one here figured, whether in size and 
beauty of its blossoms, or the color and markings of its floral cover- 
ings. Stems none ; leaves radical, few, and equitant at the base, 
broadly linear, coriaceous, distichous, keeled at the back, glabrous, 
and of a yellow green color ; Scape terete, downy, curved at the 
extremity, and there bearing an ovate-oblong, green, glabrous, remark- 
ably compressed, striated spathe ; flowers solitary, very large, three 
to four inches across ; the whole richly .spotted with white ; the two 
inner and latteral segments spreading, oblong, broader towards the 
extremity, yellow green, and pale at the base; lip large, saccate, rich 
greenish-brown without, and yellow within ; column of fructification 
short, terminated by a large, obversely cordate, yellow, slightly con- 
vex lobe, glandular below ; beset with minute red hairs above ; 
beneath this at the base, are two short, latteral processes or filaments, 
to the side of each is attached a single, sessile, two-leaved, orange- 
yellow anther ; its lobes rather unequal. 
Medical Properties and Uses. See pages 102 and 103, Vol. II. ; 
and pages 68 and 69, Vol. III. of this work. 
Vol. iv,— 122 
