Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/758

* LADY OF MONTESA. 684 LiELAPS. by the followinj; Pope, John XXII., who {jrantod him for ihis ]mri)Osi> all the estates of tlic Tem- plars and of the Knights ot Saint .lohn, situated in Valencia. Out of these was founded the new Order, whieh Kin^' .lames named after the town and easlle of .Montesa, whieh he assigned as its headquarters. In 13!>0 the Order of Saint George of Alfama was united to Montesa. In 1587 the Crown became grand master. The Order was abolished in 1872. but reinstitutcd in 1874. The order is now conferred merely as a mark of royal favor, though the provisions of its statutes are still nominally observed in new creations. The badge is a red cross, edged with gold: the cos- tunic, a long white woolen mantle, decorated with a cross on the left breast. LADY OF SHALOTT, The. The heroine of a poem of the same name by Tennyson (1832). She dies for love of Sir Laiieehil. LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK, :-r7ws'tyk, The. a tale liv V. I). Howells. originally pub- lished in the Aibinlic in 1878-7il. LADY OF THE LAKE, The. A poem by Sir Walter Scott (1810). This is the most popular of Scott's long narrative jioenis. It tcmk its name froiri the heroine. Ellen Douglas, whose home is on an inland in Loch Katrine. LADY OB THE TIGER? The. A short story by I-". K. Stockton (1884), which gained great popularity from the unsolved problem presented at jts close. The title has become a common phrase denoting a dilemma. LADY'S FRIEND. The name given to an ollieer of the House of Commons, who was charged with the duty of protecting the inter- e.sts of a wife against whom a divorce bill was pending in Parliament, by seeing that no bill of divorce passed until provision by alimony had been made" bv the husband. The office became obsolete in 18.57, on the transfer of the practice of granting divorces from Parliament to the courts of just ice. LADY'S-MANTLE (mantle of Our Lady; so called from the shape of the leaves). AlchemiUa. A genus of herbaceous plants of the natural order Rosaeeie. The common lady's-mantle (Al- chrmilla ruUiaris) is abundant on banks and in European p.astures. Its root-leaves are large, plaited, manylobed, and serrated: its flowers, in corymbose terminal clusters, usually yellowish- green. Still more beautiful is the Alpine lady's- mantle {AlchemiUa alpiiia), whieh grows on mountains, and has digitate serrated leaves, white and satiny beneath. A common European plant of very liunible growth and unpretending appearance, field lady's-mantle, or parsley piert (Alchemilln nri^rnsis], found in pastures and in- troduced into the Eastern I'nited States, is an astringent and diuretic, said to be sometimes useful in cases of stone in the bladder by pro- ducing a large secretion of lithic acid. It is, however, not officinal. LADYSMITH. A town and capital of a dis- trict of the same name in Natal. South Africa. 80 miles r.nrthwest of Pietermaritzburg, at the junc- tion of two railw.ays entering the Transvaal and Orange River colonies (Map: Cape Colony. N 5). Population (estimatedl. 3000. Prior to the Transvaal War of 1800-1002 it was chosen as <i depi"it for military stores and supplies — a choice ■which has been condemned as a strategical error, which considerably prolonged the war. In its defen.se 0000 English troops under General White sustained a siege of 118 days from November 2, 1800. until relieved by Lord Dundonald, acting under General Buller, on February 28, 1900, a desperate assault by the Boers having been re- pelled on .January Gth. LADY'S-SLIPPER, or Moccasin-Floweb (so called from the shape of the labellum), Ci/pri- pedium. A genus of plants of the natural order Orchidacea'. of wide (listribution throughout the temperate parts of the globe, e.vcept Africa and A plokibt's ladt's-blippeb (Cypripediam insigne). Australia. Ci/piipedium insigne is a native of Nepal: Vyprlpedium deUle of Japan; (Jypri- pedium ciilceolux of Europe, where it is the only species. In North America there are about ten species, of which Vijpripedium spectabilc, the showy lady's-slipper, a plant two feet high, is the most conspicuous, and C/jpripedium hnmite, the pink lady's-slipper, is the most common. The species of Cypripedium are terrestrial plants, in distinction ifrom the tropical epiphytes. There are about twenty species or more, and numerous hybrids, some of which have flowers of great beauty. They are of easy and extensive cultiva- tion. * See Plate of Mon6cotyle»ons. LAEKEN, laTien. A village of Belgium, a suburb ot Brussels, with which it is connected by street railways (Map: Belgium. C 4). It contains the royal palace, built in 1782 and bought by Napoleon in 1800 for .Josephine. He resided there for a time with Maria Louisa. In 1812 he exchanged it for the Elys6e Bourbon. Afterwards it became the property of Belgium, and served as the residence of the royal family. In 1890 the palace was destroyed by fire, but it has been rebuilt. Population, in 1890, 25,289; in 1000. 30,438. L.a;LAPS, leliips (Neo-Lat, from Lat. LcB- laps. name of a dog, from Gk. dtaf, lailaps, hurricane). A fossil dinosaurian reptile. See MEOAi.oeAUBue.