Secretary of The Chicago Academy of Sciences.
This interesting plant belongs to that remarkable family of orchids
(_Orchidaceæ_) which includes over four hundred genera and five
thousand species. They are especially noted for the great variety of
shapes and colors of their flowers, many of them resembling beetles
and other insects, monkey, snake, and lizard heads, as well as helmets
and slippers, the latter giving rise to the name of the plant in our
illustration. The variety, singular beauty, and delicate odor, as well
as the peculiar arrangement of the parts of the flower, make many of
the species of great financial value. This is also enhanced by the
extreme care required in their cultivation, which must be accomplished
in hothouses, for the majority of the more valuable forms are native
only in the tropical forests. Many, too, are rarely found except as
single individuals widely separated.
There are many parasitic species, and in the tropics a larger number
attach themselves by their long roots to trees, but do not obtain their
nourishment from them, while those belonging to temperate regions
usually grow on the ground.
In the last sixty years the cultivation of orchids has become a passion
in Europe and, to a great extent, in America.
It is said that "Linnæus, in the middle of the last century, knew but a
dozen exotic orchids." To-day over three thousand are known to English
and American horticulturists.
Though admired by all, the orchids are especially interesting to
the scientist, for in their peculiar flowers is found an unusual
arrangement to bring about cross-fertilization, so necessary to the
best development of plant life. It is evident also, as shown by Dr.
Charles Darwin, that this was not so in the earlier life of the family,
but has been a gradual change, through centuries, by which the species
have been better prepared to survive.
No other family of plants presents as much evidence of the provision
in nature for the protection of species and their continuance by
propagation.
Few of the orchids are of economic value to man. The most important
ones, outside of a few used in medicine, are the vanillas, natives of
tropical America and Africa.
The lady's slipper belongs to the genus _Cypripedium_ (from two Greek
words meaning _Venus_ and _a buskin_, that is, Venus' slipper).
There are about forty species found in both temperate and tropical
countries. The one used for our illustration is the "showy lady's
slipper" (_Cypripedium reginæ_ or _spectabile_) and is a native of
eastern North America from Canada nearly to the Gulf of Mexico. It
grows to a height of from one to three feet, and is leafy to the top.
It grows in swamps and wet woods, and in many localities where it
is extensively gathered for ornamental purposes it is being rapidly
exterminated.
Those living before the era of modern investigation knew little of
the functions of the various parts of flowers. We find an excellent
illustration of this ignorance in the following peculiar account of a
South American lady's slipper, written by Dr. Erasmus Darwin, father of
Dr. Charles Darwin, in the latter part of the last century.
In his notes on his poem, "The Economy of Vegetation," he says: "It has
a large globular nectary * * * of a fleshy color, and an incision or
depression much resembling the body of the large American spider * * *
attached to divergent slender petals not unlike the legs of the same
spider." He says that Linnæus claims this spider catches small birds as
well as insects, and adds: "The similitude of this flower to this great
spider seems to be a vegetable contrivance to prevent the humming-bird
from plundering its honey."
[Illustration: A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO.
LADY'S SLIPPER.
COPYRIGHT 1899, BY
NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.]