THE STATE FLOWER

OF

MINNESOTA.

The name Cypripedium (from Greek words meaning the shoe of Venus), published for this genus in 1737 by Linnæus, and its common English and American popular names, as Lady's Slipper, Moccasin Flower, and Indian Shoe, refer to the saccate and somewhat shoe-like form of the most conspicuous petal (in this Orchis family called the lip) of the flower.

About twenty-five species of Cypripedium are known, belonging to the north temperate zone and reaching south into Mexico and northern India. Six species occur in the northern United States and Canada, east of the Rocky Mountains, all of these being found in Minnesota; and about a dozen species in total occcur on this continent. They are perennial herbs with perfect, irregular flowers, which are solitary or few, large and showy.

The Minnesota species are as follows: C. arietinum R. Br., the Ram'shead Moccasin Flower, with red and whitish veiny lip, as shown in the accompanying plate; C. candidum Muhl., the small White Moccasin Flower; C. parviflorum Salisb., the small Yellow Moccasin Flower, also shown in this plate; C. pubescens Willd., with much larger yellow flowers; C. spectabile Sw., with most showy, large flowers, of mingled white and pink purple color; and C. acaule Ait., the Stemless Moccasin Flower, with leaves on the ground and a large rose-purple flower on an erect scape nearly a foot high. These plants grow preferably in cold and moist woods and in bogs, flowering from May to July. The first and second are rare or infrequent; but the other four are frequent or common, especially northward.

NOTE. Minnesota has fourteen genera, including forty-one species, of the Orchis family, to which the Cypripediums belong. In total, 1,582 species of flowering plants, and sixty-eight ferns and their allies, making together 1.650 species, were tabulated, as known to grow without cultivation in this state, by Warren Upham in the Catalogue of the Flora of Minnesota, published in the Twelfth Annual Report of the Geological and Natural History Survey for the year 1883 (193 pages, with a map showing the areas of forest and prairie). Within the basin of the Minnesota river, according to the report in 1892 by Prof. Conway MacMillan, the state botanist, 1,174 species and varieties of flowering plants, including all our Cypripediums, are known and have been collected for the Herbarium of the State University. The State Flower is thus chosen from among more than a thousand others which bloom on our prairies, in the northern woods, in their cool bogs, and in our streams and lakes.

THE STATE FLAG

OF

MINNESOTA.

The state legislature of 1893, by chapter sixteen, provided for the adoption of a state flag.

Mrs. Franklyn L. Greenleaf, Mrs. A. A. White, Mrs. Edward Durant, Mrs. F. B. Clarke, Mrs. H. F. Brower and Mrs. A. T. Stebbbins were by this act named and designated a commission to select and adopt an appropriate design for a state flag.

Conformably to the provision of this act, this commission called for designs, and on Tuesday, February 28, 1893, met, selected and adopted the design presented by Mrs. Edward H. Center, of Minneapolis.

Following is a description of the flag: "The ground is of white silk, and the reverse side of blue silk, bordered with bullion fringe. In the center is the state seal, wreathed with white Moccasin flowers, on a blue ground. The red ribbon of the seal bearing the motto is continued through the wreath, entwining the blossoms and floating carelessly over the lower portion of the flag. It bears, in gold, the dates 1819, the time of the settlement of Minnesota, and 1893. Above, also in gold, is the date 1858, the time of the admission of Minnesota to the Union. Below the design, in gold letters, is wrought 'Minnesota.' Grouped around the seal are nineteen stars in the design of star points, with the North Star, significant of the North Star State, in a group of three at the top."

The choice of the number nineteen is a peculiarly happy one, as Minnesota was the nineteenth state, after the original thirteen, to be admitted to the Union. The standard to the flag was surmounted by a golden gopher, and tied with a gold cord and tassel. The execution of the design is entirely in needle work.