The two white Lady's Slippers (Cypripdeium passerinum and Cypripedium montanum) are less gorgeous than the yellow species, but are more rare and charmingly dainty in appearance. Their shell-like velvety sacs, spotted inside with carmine, are very lovely.
But the Pink Lady's Slipper (Cypripedium acaule), the most rare and the most bewitching of all the orchids—how shall I describe its exotic beauty! A flower carven in coral of rose, it springs like a living flame from the soft green of its setting, exhaling a perfume sweet as the breath of Araby. Lance-shaped purplish sepals spread out on either side to protect the single drooping blossom, and two large leaves spring up from the base to sentinel its majesty, while the great glowing sac is folded together to defy the attacks of depredating bees. The Pink Lady's Slipper is so extremely rare in the Rocky Mountains that I regard my discovery of it in the year 1903 as the crowning triumph of my botanical work in that region.
