The subject of our plate was the first species of Cypripedium to be recorded from the Himalayan region, being described by David Don in 1825 from a specimen sent home by Wallich. Jacquemont collected it in several localities during his Indian travels between 1829 and 1832 and an excellent figure is given in Decaisne's account of Jacquemont's collections. Although the species was gathered by botanists, explorers and others on many occasions in subsequent years there is no further mention of it in print until 1888. In this year Franchet, in a paper dealing with the genus Cypripedium in China, states that he had seen specimens of C. cordigerum collected by the Abb? Delavay in Yunnan. I have not seen these specimens and there seems to be no other record of the species from China. Until quite recently the distribution of C. cordigerum has been given as extending from Hazara and Kashmir in the west to Nepal in the east, in which regions it occurs between altitudes of 2100 and 3700 m., on the outskirts of forests or in open glades. I have, however, during the past few years seen two living plants which came from Bhutan, which.