Last spring an acquaintance of mine was rambling through the woods and came across the Cypripedium, or the Moccasin flower, or the Lady slipper, the state flower of Minnesota.  He sent me a few specimens.  Although I had lived in the state of Minnesota for a number of years, this was the first time that I had ever seen the state flower or known anything about it.  The incident set me to thinking, and I went to work to find out what I could about this flower.  I herewith present that information as briefly as possible.

There are forty-one states in the Union that have a state flower.  Other states have the matter under consideration.  This fact alone would indicate that a state flower is of some importance as an emblem, or it would not be so generally considered by the various states.  In most instances the flower was selected by a vote of the public school scholars of the respective states.  The vote was then submitted to the state legislature and a resolution adopted making the state flower legal.  I submit to you the question:  Are school children qualified to choose a flower as an emblem of the state?  Do they understand the conditions required in the state and the purpose of the selection sufficiently well to enable them to select intelligently?  Do the children in your school know what flower is common in the northern part of the state as well as in the southern part of the state?

In Minnesota, however, the state flower was not chosen by the school children of the state, but upon petition of the Woman’s Auxiliary Board of World’s Fair Managers a resolution was introduced into the senate February 4th, 1893, by the late Senator W.B.  Dean, providing that the wild Lady Slipper, or the Moccasin flower, Cypripedium calceolus, be accepted and the same designated and adopted as the state flower, or the floral emblem of the state of Minnesota.  This resolution was also adopted in the house the same day.  A few years later upon petition of the Nature Club of Minneapolis the variety was changed to the Reginae or Spectabile, variety.

[Illustration:  The Lady Slipper—­Minnesota State Flower.  Somewhat under size.]

The mystery of the selection in this state is, why was a flower chosen which is not common to any part of the state?  We therefore have a state flower, beautiful in itself, but without special appeal to the people because it is comparatively unknown.

There are about forty species of the Cypripedium belonging to the north temperate zone.  Several of these species occur in the northern United States and Canada, east of the Rocky Mountains, which are found in the state of Minnesota.  It is called the Moccasin flower because it resembles the Indian shoe.  This plant grows preferably in cool and moist woods or in bogs.  It flowers principally during the months of May and June.  The varieties differ in color, being deep red, pink, yellow, white and variegated.  All of the species, however, are very beautiful.