MONG the many rare and beautiful flowers that adorn our native woods and wilds, few, if any, can compare with the lovely plants belonging to the family to which the central flower of our Artist’s group belongs. Where all are so worthy of notice it was difficult to make a choice; happily there is no rivalry to contend with in the case of our Artist’s preferences.
There are two beautiful varieties of the species, the pink and white, and purple and white Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium Spectabile), better known by the familiar local name of Moccasin-Flower, a name common in this country to all the plants of this family.
Whether we regard these charming flowers for the singularity of their form, the exquisite texture of their tissues, or the delicate blending of their colours, we must acknowledge them to be altogether lovely and worthy of our admiration.
The subject of the figure in our plate is the Pink-flowered Moccasin; it is chiefly to be found in damp ground, in tamarack swamps, and near forest creeks, where, in groups of several stems, it appears, showing its pure blossoms among the rank and coarser herbage. The stem rises to the height of from 18 inches to 2 feet high. The leaves, which are large, ovate, many nerved and plaited, sheathing at the base, clothe the fleshy stem, which terminates in a single sharp pointed bract above the flower. The flowers are terminal, from one to three, rarely more; though in the large purple and white Lady’s Slipper, the older and stronger plants will occasionally throw out three or four blossoms. This variety is found on the dry plain-lands, in grassy thickets, among the oak openings above Rice Lake, and eastward on the hills above the River Trent. This is most likely the plant described by Gray; the soil alone being different. The unfolded buds of this species are most beautiful, having the appearance of slightly flattened globes of delicately-tinted primrose coloured rice paper.
The large sac-like inflated lip of our Moccasin flower is slightly depressed in front, tinged with rosy pink and striped. The pale thin petals and sepals, two of each, are whitish at first, but turn brown when the flower is more advanced toward maturity. The sepals may be distinguished from the petals; the former being longer than the latter, and by being united at the back of the flower. The column on which the stamens are placed is three-lobed; the two anthers are placed one on either side, under the two lobes; the central lobe is sterile, thick, fleshy, and bent down—in our species it is somewhat blunt and heart-shaped. The stigma is obscurely three-lobed. The root of the Lady’s Slipper is a bundle of white fleshy fibres.
One of the remarkable characteristics of the flowers of this genus, and of many of the natural order to which it belongs, is the singular resemblance of the organs of the blossom to the face of some animal or insect. Thus the face of an Indian hound may be seen in the Golden-flowered Cypripedium pubescens; that of a sheep or ram, with the horns and ears, in C. arietinum; while our “Showy Lady’s Slipper,” (C. spectabile), displays the curious face and peering black eyes of the ape.
One of the rarest and, at the same time, the most beautiful of these flowers, is the “Stemless Lady’s Slipper,” (C. acaule), a figure of which will appear in our second volume.
It is a matter of wonder and also of regret, that so few persons have taken the trouble to seek out and cultivate the beautiful native plants with which our country abounds, and which would fully reward them for their pains, as ornaments to the garden border, the shrubbery, the rookery, or the green-house. Our orchidaceous plants alone would be regarded by the foreign florist with great interest.
A time will come when these rare productions of our soil will disappear from among us, and can be found only on those waste and desolate places where the foot of civilized man can hardly penetrate; where the flowers of the wilderness flourish, bloom and decay unseen but by the all-seeing eye of Him who adorns the lonely places of the earth, filling them with beauty and fragrance.
For whom are these solitary objects of beauty reserved? Shall we say with Milton:—