Four species of this genus unfold upon almost the same day. The Ram’s-Head Cypripedium should bloom first, according to general reports of botanists, the Pink Acaule immediately follows, and the Larger Yellow Moccasins, and, at the same time, the Small Yellow Fragrant Slippers unlace their beautiful twisting petals. The Showy Orchis is supposed to be the first orchid of the spring to blossom in New England. [Illustration: =The Showy Orchis.= (_Orchis spectabilis._) The first orchid of the spring, found near the rocky borders of Thompson’s Brook, East Pownal, Vermont.] I discovered nothing in the Chalk Pond meadows, however, save that it was one of the most charming little corners in the town, showing deep erosions about its terraced basin, proving that the ice-currents of the past flowed through these gulfs with terrible force. I have found the Large Yellow Moccasin-Flower growing in close relationship with the dwarf fragrant species (_Cypripedium parviflorum_), in the Swamp of Oracles, in District Fourteen, about May 25th; while they appear later in the upland woods,—from June 6th until June 25th. They grow, as will be observed, along high, rocky hillsides as well as in damp, sphagnous marshes. The upland species are often found in open clearings on hillsides, among the dead brushwood heaps, where grow the Maiden-Hair and Christmas Ferns. Often they are in full sight, but sometimes they are hidden under small hazel-nut bushes, amid sapling white birches. There seem to be three different forms of the Yellow Cypripediums, although there are but _two_ accepted distinct North American species north of Mexico; these appear also to intergrade frequently. Close association of habitat has probably something to do with this cross-fertilization of the two species. Finding the two marsh plants, _Cypripedium hirsutum_ and _Cypripedium parviflorum_, growing side by side in the Swamp of Oracles, I observed a marked intergrading,—the larger species, _Cypripedium hirsutum_, producing variegated sepals and petals, or possibly now and then a brown-pink petal or sepal, imitating the type species of the smaller Moccasin-Flower. Both species were fragrant in a slight degree, _Cypripedium parviflorum_ being, of course, the more fragrant of the two. There is an European Yellow Cypripedium (_Cypripedium calceolus_) which is almost identical with the smaller species of North America, _Cypripedium parviflorum_. As early as 1760, _Cypripedium calceolus_ was described and illustrated in color in Philip Miller’s _Figures of Plants_. Linnæus, 1740, gave the European yellow species the present generic and specific designation. Any history relating to that species of Lady’s Slipper, as it was first known in Europe by Dodoens as early as 1616 under the title of _Calceolus Marianus_, will also pertain to the history of the two closely allied Yellow Cypripediums found in North America.