My Studio Neighbors

Another similar device for assuring the necessary side approach is seen in H. flava (Fig. 15), a yellowish spiked species, more or less common in swamps and rich alluvial haunts. Professor Wood remarks, botanically, "The tubercle (or palate) of the lip is a remarkable character." But he, too, has failed to note the equally remarkable palate of the ragged orchid, just described, both provisions having the same purpose, the insurance of an oblique approach to the nectary. In H. flava this "tubercle," instead of depending from the throat, grows upward from the lip, and, as we look at the flower directly from the front, completely hides the opening to the nectary, and an insect is compelled to insert its tongue on one side, which direction causes it to pass directly beneath the pollen disc, as in H. lacera, and with the same result. Of all our native orchids, at least in the northeastern United States, the Cypripedium, or Moccasin-Flower, is perhaps the general favorite, and certainly the most widely known. This is readily accounted for not only by its frequency, but by its conspicuousness. The term "moccasin-flower" is applied more or less indiscriminately to all species. The flower is also known as the ladies'-slipper, more specifically Venus's-slipper--as warranted by its generic botanical title--from a fancied resemblance in the form of the inflated lip, which is characteristic of the genus. We may readily infer that the fair goddess was not consulted at the christening. There are six native species of the cypripedium in this Eastern region, varying in shape and in color--shades of white, yellow, crimson, and pink. The mechanism of their cross-fertilization is the same in all, with only slight modifications.