070

  • Cypripedium Elliottianum (lady's slipper orchid)

  • Late 19th to early 20th century
  • Artist unknown
  • Color lithograph or chromolithograph
  • 28.1 x 21.2 cm., 11-1/16 x 8-3/8" image
  • Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Martin Barooshian, Paul A. Anderson Art History Collection, Augustana College 1994.14.7

Essay by Bohdan Dziadyk, Professor Emeritus of Biology, Former Director of College Field Stations

In an 1861 letter to his friend Sir Joseph Hooker, then assistant director of the Kew Gardens in England, Charles Darwin admitted that "I never was more interested in any subject in my life than that of orchids." Indeed, so keen was the interest of the great biologist in orchids that he published a book on them in 1862 entitled The Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilized by Insects, and he continued to study and include them in his writings until the end of his life in 1882. In focusing on the orchid family, Darwin had chosen one of the most specialized but at the same time diverse and species rich groups of flowering plants. Botanists estimate that the family Orchidaceae may contain 20,000 to 25,000 species or more in most terrestrial habitats although the great majority are concentrated in tropical rain forests. A guide along a Costa Rican river once identified for me seventeen species of epiphytic orchids on one fallen tree. By contrast, all of Illinois contains only four dozen species of native orchids.

The orchid in the accompanying print is a lady's slipper orchid. The genus name of this orchid Cypripedium is Greek for "slipper of Venus" or simply "lady's slipper." The slipper-shaped flower petals vary from yellow to white to pink or other shadings in various species. These are among the best known of native Midwestern orchids and are sought out by casual hikers and plant lovers alike. These rare wildflowers should never be picked, however, or transplanted to a garden because they rarely survive removal from their specialized habitat.