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Fig. i. — Showy Lady's Si.ii^ek.
Cypripcdiur.i spectabile.

TH

Orchids of New England

A POPULAR MONOGRAPH.

HENRY BALDWIN.

NEW YORK:

JOHN WILEY & SONS.
1884.

D.c

IWce coUectLon J %V?

Aocc9s.Ap<-H-^3

Copyright, 1884,
By HENRY BALDWIN.

Press of J. J. Little & Co.,
Nos. 10 to 20 Astor Place, New York.

INTRODUCTION

The name Orchid is with most persons associated with the
heat and luxuriant vegetation of southern climates, and our
North American species are, as a rule, known only to botan-
ists. Few in number, terrestrial in their habits, often un-
obtrusive in color, almost valueless in trade, they make of
themselves no claim to distinction in the vast floral tribe to
which they belong ; and the rambler in wood or field is sur-
prised when told that this or that flower he has brought home
is related to the gorgeous and curious plants he has admired in
some hot-house. When the Island of Java contains over three
hundred species of Orchids, it is but a confession of poverty to
state that the section of the United States lying east of the
Mississippi and north of North Carolina and Tennessee pro-
duces fifty-nine species and varieties ; but when this area is
narrowed down to New England and forty-seven are found in
the catalogue of her flora, the provincial pride that devotes a
special treatise to this little group can be easily understood.

My own acquaintance with this rural family was for years
what might be called a bowing one ; a supposed ability to call
its members by name when I saw them and an appreciation of
their outward beauty or oddity forming a superficial knowledge
with which I was quite content until I began to make a series
of sketches of my charming friends. Then, as I observed
them more closely in their homes, I realized how little one
knows about .his neighbors, after all ; discovered that there
were brothers and sisters, cousins once or twice removed and
other relatives I had never seen, and that these apparently

6 IN TR OD UC TION.

guileless folk had tastes and passions deserving the closest
study. They actually seem, now that I understand them bet-
ter, more like human beings than forms of vegetation, and if
we believe the marvellous tales of the wise men as to the de-
pendence of Orchids upon insects; that each part of a flower
has its share in the mutual labor ; that the spots and fringes,
silken curtains and waving banners, strong, or subtile odors,
are not mere adornments, but necessary to the fertility of the
plant and the perpetuation of its race ; that there are changes
in color and structure, plots and devices to gain their ends, we
must confess, I think, that although the Orchids do not spin,
they toil with a wisdom and foresight that Solomon might
have envied.

It is well to enumerate at this point the leading characteris-
tics of Orchids ; that is, of the Orchis family, and I find that
many are puzzled by the interchange of words. Our Orchis
spcctabilis is a species of the genus " Orchis" but the Orchis
family has many other genera, and while it is proper to call an
Arethusa or a Lady's-Slipper an Orchid, it is not proper to call
either an Orchis, that final consonant being of decided impor-
tance in the botanist's view.

Quoting from both Gray and Darwin, let me explain that
the flower of an Orchid has " 3 inner divisions (petals) and
3 outer divisions (sepals) mostly of the same texture and petal-
like appearance. One of the inner set differs more or less

from the rest and is called the labellum or lip," and this is

often beautifully or grotesquely shaped, and whether furnished
with a spur-like appendage or destitute of one, it is almost
always a conspicuous feature. " It is by far the most impor-
tant of the external envelopes of the flower. It not only
secretes nectar, but is often modelled into variously shaped re-
ceptacles for holding this fluid, or is itself rendered attractive
so as to be gnawed by insects. Unless the flowers were by some
means rendered attractive, most of the species would be cursed

IN TROD UCTIOJV.

with perpetual sterility. It is often deeply channelled, or has
guiding ridges," .... often approaches the other divisions
" closely enough to render the flower tubular." It is properly
the upper petal, but a slight twist in the ovary or seed-vessel
has turned the flower upside down, a change enabling insects
to enter the flower more easily.

" In most flowers, the stamens, or male organs, surround
in a ring the female organs, called the pistils. In all common
Orchids there is only one well-developed stamen, which is con-
fluent with the pistils and they form together the column.
Ordinary stamens consist of a filament or supporting thread
(not always seen in the Orchids) which carries the anther" and
this is " a sort of case filled with a waxy or meal-like powder,
called the pollen, which serves to fertilize the pistil." " The
anther is divided into two cells, which are very distinct in
most Orchids, and appear in some
species like two separate anthers."
" Orchids properly have three pistils
united together, the upper and anterior
surfaces of two of which form the two
stigmas. But the two are often com-
pletely confluent so as to appear as
one." The grains of pollen, when de-
posited on the stigma, " emit long
tubes," and these penetrating the sur-
face, " carry the contents of the grains
down to the young seeds in the ovary,"
which, when mature, is " a i-celled,
3-valved pod, with innumerable minute
seeds appearing like fine sawdust."
" The upper stigma is modified into an
extraordinary organ called the 7'ostellum, which in many Or-
chids presents no resemblance to a true stigma. When mature,
it either includes or is altogether formed of viscid matter."

Fig. 2.— Section of the Flower
of an Orchid. (From Darvvin.)

Pe, Pe, Petals ; Se, 6V, S>, Sepals ;
S, S, Stigmas ; Sr, Stigma mod-
ified into the rostellum.

A, Fertile anther of the outer
whorl ; A^ A-3, anthers of the
same whorl combined with the
lower petal, forming the label-
lum ; «,, a2, rudimentary an-
thers of the inner whorl (fertile
in Cypripedium), generally
forming the clinandrum ; aa,
third anther of the same whorl,
when present, forming the
front of the column.

g IN TK OD UC TION.

Originally, Darwin tells us, the flower consisted of " fifteen
organs, arranged alternately, three within three, in five whorls
or circles ; three sepals, three petals, six anthers in two circles
(of which only one belonging to the outer circle is perfect in
all the common forms) and three pistils, with one of them
modified into the rostellum. Of the existence of three of the
anthers in two of the whorls, R. Brown* offers no sufficient
evidence, but believes that they are combined with the labellum
whenever that organ presents crests or ridges. The amount
of change these flowers have undergone from their parental
or typical form is enormous. Organs are used for purposes
widely different from their proper use, — other organs have
been entirely suppressed or have left mere useless emblems of
their former existence." Two stamens belonging to the outer
circle, that were or became petal-like, have united with a real
petal to form the lip. Seven organs have united to form the
column," of which three alone perform their proper function,
namely one anther and two generally confluent stigmas, —
with the third stigma modified into the rostellum and inca-
pable of being fertilized, — and with three of the anthers no
longer functionally active, but serving either to protect the
pollen of the fertile anther, or to strengthen the column, or
existing as mere rudiments, or entirely suppressed. To trace
the gradations perfectly between the several species and groups
of species in this great and closely-connected order, all the ex-
tinct forms which have ever existed along many lines of descent
converging to the common progenitor would have to be called
into life." f

The flower of an Orchid may be solitary, or one of a cluster,
and is furnished with a bract, a kind of little leaf that springs
from the point where the flower stem joins the main stem.
Sometimes petals and sepals unite to form a hood or roof over

* A noted authority on this special subject,
f "The Fertilization of Orchids."

IN TROD UCTION. 9

the lip \ sometimes spread apart, giving the blossom the look of
a winged insect. Who knows but nature intended to make the
resemblance closer and then changed her mind ? The blossom
or blossoms may be borne on a scape, a stalk without normal
leaves, like that of our Pink Lady's-Slipper, or on a leafy stem
like that of the Yellow Lady's-Slipper; this scape, or stem,
being sometimes covered with minute down ; often ribbed or
angled. The leaves are parallel veined, like those of the
Lilies (indeed, as the Lily family follows the Orchis family
pretty closely in botanical order and there are obvious points
of resemblance, it is not strange that some Orchids are mis-
taken for Lilies), and coming to the roots, we have three or
four kinds; clusters of fibres, clusters of tubers, branching,
coral-like substances, and bulbs. Nearly all Orchids, wher-
ever they may grow (in England, all but one species), de-
pend so closely upon insects for their fertilization that the
failure of a plant to attract the insects that would naturally
visit it, or to produce the nectar for which they come, would
work a two-fold mischief: the extinction of the one must be
followed by the extinction of the other. To sum up, in the
words of Hermann Miiller: " The Orchis family is remarkable
for the following characters, due to its wide distribution and
to its enormous number of species : first, for great variety of
habit and diversity of station ; secondly, for its immense variety
of peculiar and highly-specialized flowers ; and thirdly, for the
unusually large number of seeds produced in one capsule." *

Of our North American Orchids, ten species are identical
with those found in Europe, and several are represented either
directly or by allied forms in Darwin's " Fertilization of
Orchids." This writer, in his descriptions, and Professor Gray,
in his observations on American species,f have told their fas-
cinating stories so clearly that it would not be necessary for

* " The Fertilization of Flowers."
\ See appended Bibliography.

IO INTRODUCTION.

me sometimes, in quoting from both authorities, to strip the
paragraphs I have interwoven still further of their technical
language, if it were not partly my aim to attract those well dis-
posed readers who are ordinarily discouraged by the sight of a
long array of mysterious words. I hope that enough descrip-
tive terms have been taken from Gray's Botany, to furnish
what would not be obvious from an inspection of the illustra-
tions, and that the abridgment of quoted passages and the re-
jection of details has not been carried too far. It should be
added that terms such as " front," " outside," " lower," etc.,
are not always used in the strict sense in which they are em-
ployed in the botanies.

How well worthy of minute examination this single family
is, is proved by Darwin's modest confession after twenty years
study, that he doubted if he thoroughly understood the con-
trivances in any one flower. This has a discouraging sound, at
first ; for the possibility of discovering anything that eluded
his eyes, keen as those of the hero of a German legend, may
well be questioned ; but the field is a tempting one to glean,
and as few investigations have been made in America, judging
by the scarcity of printed matter relating to the subject, our
humblest species still mocks us with its secrets.

In speaking of the Orchids found in New England I shall
arrange them in the order in which they blossom in the vicinity
of Burlington, Vermont, where most of my own observations
have been made, and shall hope to make my calendar service-
able elsewhere, as my arrangement agrees pretty well with lists
sent me from other sections. Specific dates are worth con-
sidering, it seems to me, although one cannot rely on them,
but as a safer guide, especially for those who travel during the
period when these plants are in flower, let me say that so far
as I can learn, a plant blossoming in Southern Connecticut
about the first of any given month would be due in Western
Vermont, or the upper Connecticut valley between the ioth

IN TROD UC HON. 1 1

and 15th, and in the White Mountains, two weeks later still;
that is, in low or moderately elevated land. Between Portland,
Maine, and Moosehead Lake, there is thought to be a differ-
ence of at least two weeks in plants that bloom in spring;
*• this difference lessening as the hot weather comes on." The
amateur collector will find that it makes a good deal of differ-
ence in point of time, whether his search is made on the north
or south side of an elevation ; whether in shaded or open
ground ; and, moreover, will often discover that the county
map on which he has relied is of little use in locating
" stations," for he can never be sure that the plants he has seen
in one swamp will occur in a corresponding swamp in the
next township ; and, indeed, it is highly probable that
species abundant on one side of a mountain range will en-
tirely disappear when he reaches the other side. In the case
of Eastern Massachusetts, to give a clearer illustration, cer-
tain Orchids grow within thirty miles of Boston, but one's
success in getting them depends chiefly on whether he meas-
ures the thirty miles north or south of the city. The subtle
influences of soil and climate sometimes contradict one's
learned conjectures very unpleasantly.

I am indebted to Professor Gray for permission to make
liberal extracts from his Manual, to Rev. Henry P. Nichols
of New Haven, Conn., Dr. N. L. Britton of Columbia Col-
lege, and especially to my friends Henry H. Donaldson and
Frederick H. Horsford, to whom this work is informally dedi-
cated.

ORCHIS FAMILY IN NEW ENGLAND.

(Synopsis from, and mainly as arranged in Gray's Manual.)

I. Anther only one. (The 2 cells should not be mistaken
for anthers !)

Tribe I. OPHRYDE^. Anther (of 2 separate cells) borne

j 2 IN TK ODVC TION.

on and entirely adnate to the face of the stigma, erect or re-
clined. Pollen cohering into a great number of coarse grains,
which are all fastened by elastic and cobwebby tissue into one
large mass and to a stalk that connects it with a gland or viscid
disk which was originally a part of the stigma. Flower in our
species ringent, the lip with a spur beneath : one distinct gland
to each pollen-mass.

Genus I.— Orchis. The two glands, or viscid disks, enclosed
in a common pouch. Sepals and petals nearly equal, all (in
our species) converging upwards and arching over the column.
Anther-cells contiguous and parallel. I or 2 leaves at base of
scape. Root of fleshy fibres. A spike of several flowers.
O. spcctdbilis, 0. rotundifblia.

2. Habenaria. The two glands or disks naked (without
pouch or covering), either approximate or widely separated :
otherwise nearly as in true Orchis : the lateral sepals, however,
mostly spreading. Scape I or 2 leaved at base, or with leafy,
bracted stems. Root a cluster of fleshy fibres, or tuberous
thickened. A close or open spike of numerous flowers.

H. trident at a, H. vire'sccns, H. viridis var. bract cat a, H.
hvpcrbbrea, H. dilatata, H. obtusdta, H. Hodkeri, H. orbiculdta,
H. cilidris, H. blcphariglottis, H. lacera, H. psycbdcs, H. fim-
briata.

Tribe II. NEOTTIE^. Anther dorsal and erect or in-
clined, attached by its base only or by a short filament to the
base or summit of the column, persistent. Pollen in our genera
loosely cohering (mostly by some delicate elastic threads) in
2 or 4 soft masses, and soon attached directly to a viscous
gland on the beak of the stigma.

3. Goodyera. Lip entire, free from the column, without cal-
losities at the base ; sac-shaped, sessile. Otherwise as in Spiran-
thes. Leaves clustered at base of scape. Root of thick fibres.
A spike of numerous small flowers.
G. repcns, G. pub/scens, G. Menziesii.

IN TR OD UC TION. 1 3

4. Spiranthes. Lip ascending and embracing the column
below, 2 callosities at the base. Flower somewhat ringent ;
sepals and petals all narrow, mostly erect or connivent.
Leaves near the bottom or at the base of stem. Roots clustered —
tuberous. A twisted spike of numerous small flowers.

5. latifblia, S. Romanzoviana, S. cernna, S. graminea, S.
gracilis, S. simplex.

5. Listera. Lip flat, spreading or pendulous, 2-lobed at the
apex. Sepals and petals nearly alike, spreading or reflexed.
A pair of opposite leaves in the middle of the stem. Roots
fibrous. A raceme of numerous small flowers.

L. cordata, L. convallarioides.

Tribe III. ARETHUSE.E, MALAXIDE^, &c. Anther
terminal and inverted (except in No. 11) like a lid over the
stigma, deciduous.

* Pollen powdery or pulpy, in 2 or 4 delicate masses : no gland.

6. Arethusa. Lip bearded, its base adherent to the linear
column. Pollen masses 4. Flower ringent , sepals and petals
nearly alike, united at base, ascending and arching over the
column. Leaf solitary. Scape, from a globular solid bulb,
bearing usually a single flower.

A. bulbbsa.

7. Pogonia. Lip more or less crested, free from the club-
shaped column. Pollen masses 2. Flower irregular ; sepals and
petals separate. A single leaf in the middle of stem, or
several either alternate or in a whorl at the summit. Root a
cluster of fibres or oblong tubers. Flowers solitary or few in
number.

P. ophioglossoldes, P. pendula, P. vertillata, P. affinis.

8. Calopogon. Lip bearded, stalked, free : column winged at
the apex. Pollen masses 4. Flower with the ovary or stalk
not twisting, therefore presenting its lip on the upper or inner
side. Sepals and petals nearly alike, spreading, distinct. A

!4 INTRODUCTION

single leaf at base of scape. A small solid bulb. A scape

of several flowers.

C. pulcJicllus.

* * Pollen in 4-8 smooth waxy masses.

-*- Without stalks, attached directly to a large gland.

9. Calypso. Lip inflated and sac-like. Column winged and
petal-like. Scape 1 -flowered. Sepals and petals nearly similar,
ascending, spreading. A green autumnal leaf. A small solid
bulb.

C. bore a lis.

-i — h- With stalks to the 2 or 4 pollen-masses, connecting them with a gland.

10. Tipularia. Lip short, flat, long-spurred beneath. Raceme
many flowered. Sepals and petals spreading. A greenish
autumnal leaf. A large solid bulb.

T. discolor.

-* 1 i- Without either stalks or glands to the 4 pollen masses.

-M- Plants green and with ordinary leaves. Sepals spreading.

11. Micr6stylis. Column minute, round : anther erect. Lip
entire or nearly so. Sepals and petals spreading. A single
leaf at base or middle of stem. A small solid bulb. A raceme
of minute flowers.

M. mo?tophyllos, M. ophioglossdldes.

12. Liparis. Column elongated, margined at the apex:
anther lid-like. Lip flat, entire. Sepals and petals nearly
equal. 2 root leaves. A solid bulb. A raceme of several
flowers.

L. liliifblia, L. Lceselii.

++ -M- Plants tawny or purplish, leafless, or with a root-leaf only.

13. Corallorhlza. Perianth gibbous at base, or with a spur
adherent to the ovary. Perianth somewhat ringent. Sepals
and petals nearly alike, the upper arching. Anther lid-like.
Lip entire or deeply lobed. No leaves. Root-stocks branched
and coral-like. A spiked raceme of flowers.

C. inndta, C. odontorhlca, C. mult i flora.

INTRODUCTION.

1$

14. Aplectrum. Perianth not gibbous nor spurred at base.
A green autumnal leaf. Lip free from the base of column.
Otherwise the flowers and scape as in Corallorhiza. A solid
bulb or corm. A loose raceme of several flowers.

A. hycmale.

II. Anthers two, or very rarely three.

Tribe IV. CYPRIPEDIE^. The stamen which bears the
anther in the rest of the order here usually forms a petal- like,
sterile appendage to the column. Pollen not in masses : no
stalks nor gland.

15. Cypripedium. Lip an inflated sac. Anthers 2, one on
each side of the column. Sepals and petals spreading ; the
former usually broader and all three distinct, or in most cases
two of them united into one under the lip. Leaves large, many
nerved and plaited, sheathing at base. Root of many tufted
fibres. Flowers solitary or few, large and showy.

C. arietimun, C. parviflbriim, C. pubescens, C. spectdbile, C.
acaide.

Aplectrum. From the Greek a privative and itXrJKvpo v, a spur, from the total
want of the latter.

Arethusa. Name from the nymph Arethusa.

Calopogon. Greek, uaXoS, beautiful, and itooycov, beard, from the bearded
lip.

Calypso. Name from the goddess Calypso.

Corallorhiza. Greek, xopdXXiov, coral, and pKoc, root.

Cypripedium. Greek, Kvitpi^, Venus, and 7t68iov, a sock or buskin.

Goodyera. Dedicated to John Goodyer, an early English botanist.

Gymnadenia. Greek, yvf.Lvoi, naked, and ddr/v, gland.

Habenaria. From the Latin habena, a rein or strap, in allusion to the shape of
the lip or spur of some species.

Liparis. Greek, XirtapoS, fat or shining, in allusion to the shining or unctu-
ous leaves.

Listera. Dedicated to Martin Lister, an early and celebrated British naturalist.

Malaxis. From a Greek word meaning "soft," in allusion to the smooth
or unctuous leaves.

Microstylis. Greek, jitixpoS little, and drvXi1:, a column or style.

lO INTRODUCTION.

Neottia. Greek, veottkx, a bird's nest, from the tangled appearance of the roots
of some species.

Orchis. Dissolute son of a rural deity, changed after death into the flower bear-
ing his name.

Platanthera. Greek, itXarvS, wide, and dvOrjpd, anther.

Pogonia. Greek, n aoy ooviaS, bearded, from the lip of some of the original
species.

Spiranthes. Greek, 67t£ipa, a coil or curl, and arQo<s, flower.

Tipularia. Name from a fancied resemblance of the flowers to insects of the
genus Tip ula.

^%

fig. 3.— Showy Orchis. (Orchis spectabilis.)
Smaller Two-lb avbd Orchis. (Habenaria Hookeri.)

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

There are those who maintain that it is impossible to deter-
mine the period when spring actually arrives in New England.
There are days early in May, in Northern Vermont, when Lam
almost persuaded that I feel her presence. The practical
farmer, recalling the precise date when the ice in the lake broke
up, or when he sowed his grain, rebukes this sentimental lack
of faith, and the birds assert their satisfaction in more poetical
language. If Spring did not summon the song-sparrows, who
did ? Why have the blackbirds been pirating about for weeks ?
The hepaticas are " passing by," in local speech ; the wreaths of
bloodroot around the boulders by the roadsides are losing their
freshness ; the rocky ledges are tufted with saxifrage and hous-
tonia; the swelling beech buds herald the downy yellow violet ;
but with snowdrifts still visible upon the mountains, I remain
incredulous until the middle of the month, when the season
makes haste to fulfil its promises. The south wind, puffing as
from a furnace mouth, sets the young leaves twinkling on their
branches, and wafts faint perfumes from unknown sources. The
ground is hot to the touch. You can trace the blossoming
maples along the hillsides until the smoky atmosphere quenches
their brightness. The ferns, as some one once described them,
are coming up " fist first," and trilliums and Canada violets
whiten the wooded hillsides.

In my rambles at this time, in cool upland places, I expect to

20

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

find little green cornucopias pushing their way up here and
there, from a cleft and fleshy root, each composed of two thick
leaves unlike anything else in character, and with a non-com-
mittal air about them, certain to spread generously apart

towards the end of the
month, and offer their treas-
ure : a low stalk, or scape of
pinkish-purple and white
flowers. This is Orchis sped-
abilis, the Gay, Showy, or
Spring Orchis ; called, in the
Middle States, " Preacher in
the Pulpit," the anther-cells
under the canopied sepals
and petals probably suggest-
ing two clergymen overshad-
owed by a sounding-board,
the rostellum representing
their pulpit. Glad as I am to
see its little nosegays dot-
Fig. 4-Orchis mascula. {From Darwin.) ting the woods, I take small

ZZSL. ;:pnon^,orponen-mas, pleasure in gathering the

tSSL, r^distfpSuxn. Plant, which is too short

A. Side view of flower, all the petals and sepals ^Q j-^ grGuped with trilliums
removed, except the labellum, of which the near half

is cut away, as well as the upper portion of the near ancJ bellwortS, tOO Coarse tO
side of the nectary. v 11 A

B. Front view of flower, sepals and petals removed, gO With mitellaS and VIO-

"^pEK^cr pollen-mass, showingthe pack- lets J but when analysis is UU-

ets of poiien-grains, the caudicie, and the viscid disc, ^ertaken, sentiment quickly

D. Front view of the caudicles of both pollinia with

the discs lying within the rostellum, its lip being de- gjves way, and I am willing-
pressed. 111 1

E. Section through one side of the rostellum, with ly Compelled to hold the
the included disc and caudicie of one pollinium, lip . \ • \
not depressed. SllOWy OrchlS 111 high

F. Packets of pollen-grains, tied together by elas- .

ith the British

tic threads, here extended. (Copied from Bauer.)

Orchis spcctabilis agrees pretty closely
Orchis mascula, and I use Darwin's account of the manner

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 2I

in which the latter is fertilized, as retold by Prof. Gray,*
together with the figures that accompany the original de-
scription. We see in fig. A, above the entrance to the spur-
shaped nectary, the two-lobed stigma, a surface so sticky as to
hold fast whatever substance touches it ; dust, insects too
feeble to detach themselves, or the pollen that should properly
be placed there. Above the stigma is the rostellum, which has
assumed the shape of a pouch or cup ; and over the rostellum is
the anther, with its two wallet-like cells, each containing a tiny
lump of pollen, which may be likened to an exclamation point,
from its shape and the surprising things it does. A pollinium,
or pollen-mass, consists of " a mass of coarse grains fastened
together by elastic and cobwebby tissue," a tapering caudicle or
stalk, and " a minute piece or disc of membrane with a ball of
viscid matter on the under side." These two discs are enclosed
and kept moist by the rostellum.

"The pollen, although placed tantalizingly close to the stig-
ma, is incapable of reaching it." Nor is this desirable, as "a
stigma is more sensitive to the pollen of another flower than to
that of its own," and the chief object of the peculiar construc-
tion of these flowers is to secure cross-fertilization. The first
winged visitor, moth or butterfly, attracted to the newly opened
blossom, very likely by its bright colors, now comes to render
aid, and unconsciously pay for the nectar abstracted, for it can
hardly reach the entrance of the nectary without hitting its
head or proboscis against the rostellum, the surface of which is
so delicate that at the least touch " it ruptures transversely
along the top." " This act of rupturing changes the front part
of the rostellum into a lip, which can be easily depressed," and
"when thoroughly depressed, the two balls of viscid matter
are exposed." If the insect alights on the lip, "its best
landing place," it will naturally face the opening into the nec-
tary as it crawls up, and in Orchis spectabilis the sepals and

* American Journal of Science, vol. 34, II Series.

22 4 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

petals shut down so as almost to compel direct approach.
There is also a little channel along the lip, which, we may
suppose, catches and guides the proboscis. The insect will,
therefore, almost invariably touch the rostellum ; this will rupt-
ure, be depressed, and one or both exposed viscid balls stick
fast " to the intruding body, the viscid matter setting hard,
and dry, like a cement, in a few minutes' time. The firmness
of the attachment is very necessary, for if the pollinia were
to fall sideways or backwards they could never fertilize the
flower." The pollinia would thus be wrenched from their cells,
and carried away, standing out " like horns " on the insect's head,
eyes, or proboscis. The lip of the rostellum swings back into
place " when pressure is removed," so that if but one pollinium
has been taken, the disc of the remaining one is kept damp and
in readiness for the next light-winged guest.

If a pollinium remained erect on the insect, it would strike
above the stigma of the next flower visited, and fail of its pur-
pose ; but by a curious contraction of the disc-like membrane
to which its stalk is attached, the pollinium, in about half a min-
ute's time, bends downward, " always in one direction, viz.,
toward the apex of the proboscis." Supposing the insect to
occupy this amount of time in passing to another plant, " the
pollinium will have become so bent that its broad end will
exactly strike the stigmatic surface of the next blossom," and
in case all the pollen is not torn off, enough will be left to fer-
tilize several other stigmas. In O. mascula (and presumably in
our own Orchis) the nectar is not " free," but contained be-
tween the inner and outer membranes of the spur, and as Mr.
Darwin explains, " as the viscid matter of the disc sets hard in
a few minutes when exposed to the air, it is manifest that
insects must be delayed in sucking the nectar, by having to
bore through several points of the inner membrane and to suck
the nectar from the inter-cellular spaces, time being thus
allowed for the disc to become immovably fixed."

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 23

Miiller's stupendous work, The Fertilization of Flowers (it has
recently been translated from the German) gives very clear and
plausible reasons for the concealment of the u*-*^-
pollen and the peculiar formation of the
nectaries in plants, and I am sure it will
add to the reader's pleasure in studying the
Showy Orchis if I insert some extracts.

"Freely exposed, pollen is liable to be Fig.5._Head 0f,-moth,
spoilt by rain, devoured by flies and beetles, a com i a luctuo**,

y ' with pollen-masses at-

or carried away by pollen-collecting bees. tached to its proboscis.

Pollinium removed by

Of these contingencies, the first is wholly a pencil and before un-

dergoing- the movement

an evil, the second becomes advantageous Gf depression. (Both
if any considerable amount of pollen is
conveyed to the stigma, and the third almost always results
in fertilization, and is therefore altogether advantageous.
Concealment of the pollen, as of the honey, must have been
brought about, in the first place, as a protection from rain.
Since with this advantage comes the disadvantage that the
sheltered pollen is less likely to be touched and placed on the
stigma by insect visitors, concealment of the stamens has not

become general And all flowers with hidden anthers

have only been able to shelter their pollen from rain in so far
as they have developed other adaptations for particular visitors,
which compensate for the less general access of pollen-carrying
insects. For this reason, flowers with hidden pollen (Orchids,
for instance) afford the most conspicuous examples of adapta-
tion in form and in dimensions to a more or less narrow circle
of visitors. But the more perfectly flowers are adapted for
cross-fertilization by particular insects, the more unlikely does,
it become that other insects visiting the flowers will effect .
cross-fertilization, and the more will such visits of other insects
be useless or injurious. So concealment of the pollen is useful
(to a subsidiary degree) in limiting insect visitors.
The mechanism is so perfect and so effectual in these flowers,

24 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

that cross-fertilization is thoroughly insured, though Orchids
offer sap only to their visitors."

" Species with a short and not very narrow nectary," says
Darwin, " are fertilized by bees and flies ; those with a much
elongated nectary, or one having a very narrow entrance, by
butterflies and moths." " The concealment of the honey in a
nectary, protected by other parts of the flower," says Miiller,
"protects the honey from rain, and permits a larger supply to
be accumulated, thus attracting visitors in an increased degree."
With these disadvantages : " The honey is the less easily dis-
covered the more it is protected, so that a great host of the
less acute visitors are excluded ; and the more intelligent
visitors which are able to detect it, cannot obtain it so quickly
as if it were more exposed, so that the work of fertilization
goes on more slowly." But " exclusion of the multitude of
less intelligent short-lipped visitors is only injurious so long as
more specialized visitors are not abundant enough to accom-
plish all the work of fertilization," and " delay in this work,
owing to concealment of the honey, is diminished by a great i
variety of contrivances, and sometimes entirely removed, . . .
pathfinders (colored spots or lines) point towards the honey,
and enable the more intelligent visitors to find it in a moment \
delay in obtaining deeply-placed honey is lessened by the
development of convenient standing-places, of apertures spe-
cially fitted for the insect's head or proboscis," etc. He
supposes that " the first honey-yielding flowers exposed their
honey on flat surfaces, and that the first flower-visiting insects
were only furnished with organs capable of licking up freely
exposed honey. Under these circumstances, elongation of the
proboscis would be of no advantage to any insect, but shelter
from rain and increased room for accumulating honey would
be beneficial to the plant, even before insects became divided
into short-tongued and long-tongued." With these changes in
the structure of the plant, it came to pass that only those

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

25

dependent insects possessing proboscides long enough to reach
the honey survived.

Here let me quote from Darwin the passage previously
alluded to (he is speaking of the Angrcecum, a Madagascar
Orchid) : " As certain moths became larger, through natural
selection, . . . or as the proboscis
alone was lengthened to obtain
honey from the Angraecum and
other deep tubular flowers, those
individual plants of the Angraecum
which had the longest nectaries
(and the nectary varies much in
length in some Orchids), and which

Fig. 6.— Showy Orchis.— Front view of
Consequently Compelled the moths flower, and ripened seed vessels.

to insert their proboscides up to the very base (for then only
would the pollen be removed), would be the best fertilized.
These plants would yield most seed, and the seedlings would
generally inherit long nectaries ; and so it would be in suc-
cessive generations of the plant and of the moth," a race, as
he puts it, between nectary and proboscis, and this pleasing
theory, very likely, may apply to the long nectaries of some of
the species included in the present treatise, the Habenarias, for
example.

I doubt if the Showy Orchis would gain anything by a
modification of structure ; certainly not in the matter of fer-
tilization, if my experience is the common one; for I rarely
come across a plant that has gone but of flower that has not
developed all its ovaries. This Orchis grows so low that it
must be visited by many kinds of small insects ; the short spur
would appear to tempt even those that would not naturally
come to it ; and as there are but a few blossoms to a spike, the
insect cannot be as fastidious as where there are many to
choose from. The character of the root has already been
described; but I have lately read Prof. Meehan's chapter on

2 5 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

this plant in Native Flowers and Ferns, and transfer his inter-
esting statement, that while " most of the true Orchises of
Europe have a tuberous root in addition to their fibres, our
species has fleshy fibres only."

The few who have found the Showy Orchis in Maine tell me
that it does not bloom before June in that State, and even
then is preceded by two other Orchids, but May is its time in
Massachusetts, and in Connecticut, where it has been gathered
as early as May 3d ; and as we rarely fail to get it the third
week of the month in Vermont, I think it may rightly be said
to open the Orchid season. The Stemless, or Pink Lady's
Slipper, Cypripedium acaule (C. kumileoi the old writers) presses
it so closely, however, that it is not a matter of wonderment
when I secure them both on the same day. The latter, known
better, perhaps, as " Moccasin Flower," " Venus' Slipper " —
names applied to the other species as well — " Indian Mocca-
sin," " Old Goose," " Camel's Foot," " Noah's Ark" (the last
two popular names are probably rarely heard out of the Mid-
dle States), represents the other extreme of the Orchis family,
and Mr. Darwin held, as late as 1877 certainly, when the sec-
ond edition of his " Fertilization of Orchids " was published,
his original opinion that " the single genus Cypripedium differs
from all other Orchids far more than any other two of them do
from each other," adding, " an enormous amount of extinction
must have swept away a multitude of intermediate forms, and left
this genus, now widely distributed, as a record of a former and
more simple state of the great Orchidean order." Mr. George
Bentham, in a paper read before the Linnaean Society of Lon-
don in 1 88 1, took the opposite side, saying: "The importance
of the single character (the possession of more than one an-
ther) separating the Cypripediae from Orchids generally has
fallen so much in estimated value that they have by common
consent been reunited with that order as a distinct tribe only."

"The single anther," says Darwin, " which is present in all

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

2/

other Orchids, is rudimentary in Cypripedium, and is repre-
sented by a singular shield-like projecting body" conspicu-
ously placed just over the lip. The fertile anthers which sup-
ply its deficiencies lie back of it, one on either side of the short,
bent column, and each bearing two small oval cells. These
anthers " belong to an inner whorl or circle, and are repre-
sented in ordinary Orchids by various rudiments. There is no

Fig. 7. — Cypripedium.

x. Ripened seed-vessel of Smaller Yellow Lady's Slipper.

2. Front view of same flower. a, a, anthers ; a', sterile stamen ; s, s, s, sepals ; A A

petals ; /', labellum ; en, entrance.

3. Side view of organs of Showy Lady's Slipper ; si, stigma.

4. Root of Lady's Slipper.

5-6. (From Muller.) Essential organs in C. calceolus seen from belcw. Flower in longitudinal
section after removal of sepals and superior petals ; lip bent slightly downward ; ovt
ovary; ex, exit.

rostellum, for all three stigmas are fully developed," though so
united as to appear as one body, and this, also shield-shaped,
lies behind and concealed by the rudimentary anther, and is
only slightly viscid. The pollen has no stalk or disc, but is
" loose and pulpy or powdery," and, where it is exposed by the
opening of the cells, sticky, so that it is often carried off either
bodily or piecemeal." There is no nectar in the lip, but " the
inner surface is coated with hairs, the tips of which secrete

28 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

little drops of slightly viscid fluid." " Insects such as flies/'
says Gray, " may enter the flower by one of the side openings,
and so take a load of pollen upon the back of the head as they
pass under the anther, which they would rub against the
stigma, since they must crawl directly under it (to get at the
hairs\ and, escaping by the opening under the other anther,
they would carry off some of its pollen to the flower of the
next plant visited ; but they ordinarily go in by the front
entrance (even in C. acaule), crawl under the ample face of the
stigma as they feed, rubbing their heads or backs against it,
and, passing on, make their exit by one of the side openings,
which now become visible to them, almost inevitably carrying
off pollen as they escape, which they would convey to the
stigma of the next flower. The stigma, instead of being
smeared with glutinous matter, as in ordinary Orchids, is
closely beset with minute, rigid, sharp-pointed papillae or pro-
tuberances, all directed forwards," and these comb off the pol-
len from the insect.

All of our five species of Lady's Slipper have fibrous roots,
but C. acaule differs in not having a leafy stalk, — its pinkish,
veined, and fissured lip being swung on a slender scape. " The
stem," as Prof. Goodale says, " is really present, although con-
cealed underground and often disguised by assuming the shape
of a thickened root." That ingenious but much disputed
English writer, Grant Allen,* believes that where plants have
little competition they produce, as a rule, such large, coarse,
entire leaves as are borne by our Lady's Slippers; but where
they grow in thickets or in the grass, as many of our other
Orchids do, and the struggle for food, air, and sunshine is
fierce, the leaves are forced to become slender and subdivided
in order to obtain their share. The variety in the shapes of
the leaves of our Orchids will give the reader a good opportu-

* " The Forms of Leaves," Nature^ March, 1883.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 2Q

nity of proving Mr. Allen's hypothesis, especially if he studies
the plants as they grow.

Whether a Lady's Slipper comes from New England, Sibe-
ria, or the Tropics, its lip, or labellum, as this part is usually
called, is its most picturesque feature, and I do not think that
any one who ever saw that of C. acaule could soon forget it. A
countryman once described it to me as blue, ignorant of the
fact that that is the only color Orchids are not allowed to
wear. The botanist Pursh speaks of " its delicate and expres-
sive purple," while Barton, in his Flora of North America, calls
the petals " siskin green," and shows a better perception of
color than botanists generally do, though, in truth, the sepals
and petals vary as much as the lip, and are often of a deep
purplish or reddish brown. All flowers of a pink hue exhibit
white varieties, and C. acaule is not uncommonly met with in
this garb, as in the Franconia Valley ; Essex Co., Mass. ; Knox
and Penobscot Cos., Maine; and in the last-named State Miss
Kate Furbish discovered and reported in the American Nat-
uralist two perfect blossoms growing back to back on the
same plant — a freak repeated the following year in the White
Mountains. Meehan, in Native Flozvers and Ferns* gives a
plate representing a plant with two buds. This species is as
variable in size as in color. T. W. Higginson, in Outdoor
Papers characterizes it as " high bred," and says he never can
resist the feeling that each specimen is a rarity, even when
he finds a hundred to an acre.

In early springs, this Lady's Slipper sometimes appears the
first week in May in Southern Maine. June I has been sent
me, on good authority, as the average date for Essex Co.,
Mass. Thoreau, giving a specific date with his well-known
dictum, "Cypripedium not due till to-morrow," expected it at
Concord on the 20th of May, and it is about that date when I

* 2d Series.

30 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

have been accustomed to hunt for it in the pine woods of East
Hartford, Conn., my signal and guide-post being the pretty
little Fringed Polygala. A lady familiar with it as it grows in
the Adirondacks assures me that she most often meets with it
where pines have fallen. " It seems to have a great fondness
for decaying wood ; and I often see a whole row perched like
birds along a crumbling log." Gray rather restricts it to " dry
or moist woods, under evergreens," for which he is corrected
by Meehan, who says : " its general place of growth is in woods
of deciduous trees," and, for myself, I know that sandy soil
and pines and shade are not indispensable to its welfare : the
finest specimens I ever saw sprang out of cushions of crisp rein-
deer moss high up among the rocks of an exposed hill-side,
and again I have found it growing vigorously in almost open
swamps, but nearly colorless from excessive moisture. This
is, perhaps, an unusual place for it, as would appear from the
last verse of a pathetic poem I have read detailing the strug-
gles of an ardent botanist : *

" The mud was on his shoon, and O
The brier was in his thumb ;
His staff was in his hand, but not
The Cypripedium."

Elaine Goodale has put her impressions of this flower in the
following verses (she represents the azaleas as blooming at the
same time), and, it will be seen, makes it an upland flower:

Stately and calm the forest rears its crown

Above the eternal height, —
Wide sweeps of early color, shimmering down,

Renew its gracious might !

Shy and proud among the forest flowers,

In maiden solitude,
Is one whose charm is never wholly ours

Nor yielded to our mood.

* Ye Lay of ye Woodpeckore, Odds and Ends, Henry A. Beers.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. oj

One true-born blossom, native to our skies,

We dare not claim as kin,
Nor frankly seek, for all that in it lies,

The Indian's Moccasin.
Graceful and tall the slender drooping stem,

With two broad leaves below,
Shapely the flower so lightly poised between,

And warm her rosy glow.
Yet loneliest rock-strewn haunts are all her bent,

She heeds no soft appeal,
And they alone who dare a rude ascent

Her equal charm may feel.
We long with her to leave the beaten road,

The paths that cramp our feet,
And follow upward thro' the tangled wood,

By highways cool and sweet;

From dewy glade to bold and rugged steep

Pass fleet as winds and showers,

• •••.....•

With careless joy we thread the woodland ways

And reach her broad domain.
Thro' sense of strength and beauty free as air,

We feel our savage kin ;
And thus alone, with conscious meaning, wear

The Indian's Moccasin! "*

I was once on the point of throwing away some Pink Lady's
Slippers I had gathered, they had become so wilted by the sun,
when it occurred to me to try a means of restoration that had
been successful in the case of other flowers, and, selecting the
most discouraged one of the bunch, I put it in a glass of almost
boiling water. The pouch was a shapeless mass, and part of
the scape shrivelled and black, but in the course of an hour
I returned to behold the scape stiff and green and the pouch
swelled out to its original size. ♦

The Downy, or Yellow Lady's Slipper, C. pubescens, which
has a pretty local name, " Whip-poor-Will Shoe," and comes

* In Berkshire with the Wild Flowers

^2 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND,

close, according to Professor Gray, to C. calccolus, of Northern
Europe, itself known in France as " Sabot de la Vierge " and
" Soulier de Notre Dame," will display its bright yellow blos-
som a few days later, its broad, alternate leaves contrasting
finely with the more delicate foliage about it. The labellum is
flattish on the sides, exhibits slight inequalities of surface
(which in C. calccolus, if the pictures of that species I have
seen are correct, become decided folds or ridges), and often de-
velops quite a pointed toe. There is no fissure in front such as
we see in the Pink Lady's Slipper. The labellum of C. pu-
bcsccns retains its color very well in a pressed state and the
shape may be kept by inserting a little cotton. " All parts of
a flower," says Meehan, "were originally designed by nature to
be ordinary green leaves, and it was only by a subsequent plan
that she altered them into sepals, petals, etc., and it is interest-
ing to note that when she goes to work on this change of
leaves to flowers, she generally carries along some peculiarities
especially belonging to the leaves. Now in the usual forms
of the Larger Yellow Lady's Slipper we find the leaves very
much undulated, botanically speaking, or with wavy and
twisted margins ; and it is in these cases where they are the
most waved that we have the greatest twisting of the floral
segments."

I sometimes find this species under evergreens, but its pref-
erence is for maples, beeches, and particularly butternuts, and
for sloping or hilly ground, and I always look with glad sus-
picion at a knoll covered with ferns, cohoshes and trilliums,
expecting to see a clump of this plant among them. Its sen-
tinel-like habit of choosing " sightly places " leads it to venture
well up on mountain sides, and I am often startled when climb-
ing a gloomy, moss-draped cliff by coming face to face with
one of its colonies. In Holmes' novel, Elsie Vcnncr, the hero-
ine brings her school-teacher a " rare, Alpine flower," and Hig-
ginson supposes it to have been the Yellow Lady's Slipper,

IIIIP

Fig. 8.— Pink Lady's Slipper. (Cypripedium acaule.)

Ram\s-head. fC arietinum.)

Small Yellow Lady's Slipper. (C. parviflorum.)

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 35

knowing well the locality referred to, with " its precipitous
walls of rock." The very flower one would select to figure in
a weird story, but, unfortunately, it is afterwards described as
" a little delicate thing that looked as if it were made to
press," and I reluctantly conclude that the writer fashioned
his plant to suit himself or had something very different in his
mind.

In experimenting with this genus, Darwin discovered that C.
calceolus, " in a state of nature " depended " on bees belonging
to five species of the genus Andrena" and selecting one of
these bees, of very small size, he gave it a blossom of C. pn-
bescens to work upon. The insect entered by the upper opening
and attempted " to crawl out the same way, but always fell
backwards, owing to the margins being inflected. The pol-
ished inner sides," he thinks may also have been a hindrance,
and so the labellum acted " like a trap," such as is made in our
kitchens by pasting a paper over the mouth of a tumbler, cut-
ting slits in the paper and turning the edges in. Flies have no
trouble in getting at the contained liquid, but are rarely able
to escape. " The bee could not creep out through the slit be-
tween the folded edges of the labellum, as the elongated, tri-
angular, rudimentary stamen here closes the passage. Ulti-
mately it forced its way out through one of the small orifices
close to one of the anthers, and was found when caught, to be
smeared with the glutinous pollen." When put back, several
times, it climbed out in the same way, and the stigma was fer-
tilized as we saw in the Pink Lady's Slipper. " Thus the use of
all parts of the flower, — the inflected edges, or the polished
inner sides, — the two orifices and their position close to the
anthers and stigma, — the large size of the rudimentary stamen,
— are rendered intelligible." " The hairs," says Midler, speak-
ing of C. calceolus, " which are arranged in a broad band on the
floor of the labellum, seem to help the bees to climb up toward
the orifices, besides attaching them by their secretions.

36

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

Smaller bees and flies which are too large to pass freely
through the orifice and too weak to force their sides apart,
must as a rule perish of hunger within the labellum. Small
beetles are often able to crawl freely out, but sometimes they
are held fast by the sticky pollen and remain to perish."

A valuable contribution to the study of our Lady's Slippers
has been sent me by Professor Trelease of the University of
Wisconsin, who writes: "In C. pubescens, parvifloriun, and can-
didum (a small white species not found in New England) there
is a variable number (1-4) of crescent-shaped or irregular trans-
lucent spots on the back of the labellum, which readily catch
the eye of an imprisoned bee (Halicta, Augochlorci), and lead in
back under the stigma, whence it sees the light through the
small opening under the anther at either side, and makes its
exit there. Small bees introduced into the labellum usually
went direct to these thin places ; failing to get out there they
went on to its regular exit openings. The labellum is so trans-
lucent throughout in all my herbarium specimens of C. aric-
tinum, spcctabilc and acaiilc, that I cannot say whether these
species have the same character ; a number of conservatory
species that I have observed, do not."

C. pubescens has what Burroughs calls " a heavy, oily odor,"
and is less pleasing than the Small Yellow Lady's Slipper, C.
parviflorum, opening about this time in swampy places. This
species, though rarer, is more widely diffused throughout North
America, according to Sir Joseph Hooker, who adds to his de-
scription of C. pubescens, without giving his authority, the
statement that " its rhizome or root-stock replaces the Valerian
as an anti-spasmodic, in the estimation of Anglo-Americans."
Some hesitate to call the Small Yellow Lady's Slipper a dis-
tinct species, but its dwarf size, richer color, curiously twisted
petals and decided perfume easily gain it the precedence in
favor with those who care for externals only. The lip is
smoother on the outside and flatter above than that of the

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 37

larger species. The Pink and the Showy Lady's Slippers have
two of their sepals " united into one, under the lip," while both
Yellow Lady's Slippers have the united sepals, " cleft at the
apex."

In Northern New England, one is sometimes fortunate
enough to gather with the Yellow Lady's Slippers, especially
with the dwarf species, the Ram's-head Lady's Slipper, C.
arietinum, the rarest species North America produces, and to
me the most attractive; a small plant, perhaps a foot high,
with dark green leaves and a fragrant, purplish-pink and
white, veined lip, which has a hairy, triangular orifice and is
small enough to be put into a child's thimble. Far fetched as
the popular name appears to be, the reader will notice if he
holds the page containing the illustration of this flower in a cer-
tain position that the protuberant lip has a slight resemblance
to a nose, and that the curving petals— often decidedly curled-
may be fancied to represent the animal's horns. The sterile
stamen is blunter than in the other species and the three
sepals are separate. " This Lady's Slipper," says Meehan, " is
a connecting link between Cypripedium and other genera of the
Orchis family. In many Orchids the outer whorl of three (the
calyx in other flowers) can be readily traced ; but it is one of
the peculiarities of Cypripedium to have apparently but two.
... As this union of the sepals was formerly considered one
of the chief foundations of the genus Cypripedium, some bot-
anists made this (Ram's-head) into a distinct genus, on account
of its three-leaved calyx, under the name of Arietinum Ameri-
canum."

This little flower has been known to botanists only since
about 1 808, when it was discovered near Montreal. It has been
reported from the Saskatchawan Valley, from Minnesota and
from Nebraska ; in New England it is so rare, except in the
extreme north, that many a collector who has it in an her-
barium has never seen it growing, and it is so incon-

38

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

spicuous, even when it grows in clumps, that one may have
minute directions given him and yet be unable to put finger
upon it at once. The Ram's-head does not confine itself to
low or damp ground, but is sometimes met with, in Vermont at
least, on dry hill-sides at the feet of pines. I strongly suspect
that some elf, refused a night's lodging in the cradle of a Pink
Lady's Slipper, and faring no better on application to a Yellow
Lady's Slipper, originated the pert little Ram's-head as a cari-
cature of both.

The musky smell possessed by many Orchids, and used, it is
supposed, to attract night-flying insects, is very noticeable in
our Lady's Slippers, particularly in their roots. It is an earthy
scent that one grows to like and to associate with nature, as he
does the smell of a wood fire. The fact that plants of the
Orchis family rarely grow in abundance, though a single one
like the English O. maciilata produces over 186,000 seeds, and its
grandchildren, at this rate of increase, would nearly carpet the
globe, has been remarked on at length by Mr. Darwin.* Bur-
roughs, in one of his most successful descriptions, accuses Cypri-
pedium of affecting privacy, declaring that when he comes across
it, he seems to be intruding on some very exclusive company ;
and of our native species, the Pink Lady's Slipper is apt, for
reasons before stated, to be found in an isolated state, but I
have counted fifty blossoms in a space less than fifty feet square,
have picked fifteen blossoms of the Small Yellow Lady's Slip-
per from one clump, and noticing, one day, as I sat down to
rest in a cedar wood, twenty young Ram's-heads within reach,
I applauded the remark of a companion who was loaded with
equally valuable trophies :• " the only really rare thing in this
region appears to be grass!" Even these are instances of
scarcity when compared with the number of spent seed-vessels
I find each spring. How easily insects discover these plants is

* Mtlller says, his brother " estimated over 1,750,000 seeds in a single capsule of
a Maxillaria."

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

39

proved by the fertilization last year of some dwarf Yellow
Lady's Slippers that were brought the year before from a
swamp fifteen miles away. The spot where they were set out
in my garden is not far from the lake shore, to be sure, but
the nearest place where any Lady's Slippers grow, and that
high ground, is two miles away. They were, therefore, not de-
pendent upon the insects of any particular locality, and even
in a very sheltered, and as it seemed unfavorable position, were
quickly found out by the proper bees or flies.

Orchis spcctabilis is called a True Orchis, because its anther-
cells are " parallel and contiguous," and the glands of the stigma
(the viscid discs) are enclosed in a pouch ; and next to the True
Orchises, in botanical arrangement, stand the Naked-gland
Orchises, belonging to the sub-genus Gymnadenia. In these
the anther-cells are still parallel, but the viscid discs, though
near together, have no pouch to enclose them. We have but one
representative species in New England, H. tridentata, to be
spoken of hereafter, as it blooms later than Orchis spectabilis,
although allied to it in structure. After the Naked-gland
Orchises, in our botanies, come the False Orchises, belonging
to the sub-genus Platanthera, and these, says Gray, have
their anther-cells " more separated and divergent," so that the
viscid discs, also unenclosed, " are carried, one to each side of
the broad stigma." In some species, in which the discs do not
stand far apart, there are curious contrivances, such as a chan-
nelled lip, lateral shields, etc., compelling moths to insert their
proboscides directly in front. " The sticky disc, in some
American species looking like a little pearl button, stands,
when the flower bud opens, directly in the way of the head of
a moth or bee ; and here the viscidity of the disc is beautifully }
adapted to the state of things, for although fully exposed to '
the air, instead of setting hard at once, as in Orchis, the disc
retains its viscidity during the whole period of the expansion
of the flower, awaiting the coming of the insect, and quite sure

4o

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

to stick fast to the side of the face (the eye most likely, as
the discs, to quote Darwin, ' cannot adhere to a scaly or
very hairy surface,') of the first one that dips its proboscis
into the attractive nectary." Moreover, as the discs are un-
covered, and " the viscid matter serves to attach the pollen-
masses firmly, without setting hard, there would be no use in
the insects being delayed by having to bore holes at several
points through the inner membrane of the nectaries," and,
therefore, in these open nectaries " we find copious nectar
ready stored for rapid suction."

Gymnadenia and Platanthera are now included in the genus
Habenaria, and this genus, together with Orchis, forms, in this
country, the tribe Ophrydeae. If it is a virtue to be a True
Orchis, the Habenarias, or Rein-Orchises, are compensated in
proportion to their departure from the standard, by acquiring
more attractive features : gayer colors, fringed or divided lips,
and generally speaking, greater height. Gray's Botany con-
tains a list of nineteen, and of this fair sisterhood thirteen are
natives of New England.

The first to offer itself for a spring bouquet is Habenaria
Hookcri, or the Smaller Two-leaved Orchis, placed by some
of my correspondents before C. parviflorum, the difference in
dates of flowering being a matter of but a few days. Find-
ing it in the same localities with Orchis spectabilis, you would
trace a family likeness at once, in the bracted, angled scape
and flat-lying leaves, if going no further into the study. The
colors it wears are green and yellow, and it cannot be styled
prepossessing, but, nevertheless, it has a decided dignity of
mien. In its structure it is much like the British H. cJdor-
antha, but its anther-cells " are more widely divergent, conse-
quently a moth, unless of gigantic size, would be able to suck
the copious nectar without touching either disc ; but this risk is
avoided in the following manner: the central line of the stigma
is prominent, and the lip, instead of hanging down, as in most

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 41

of the other species, is curved upwards, so that the front of
the flower is made somewhat tubular, and is divided into
halves. Thus a moth is compelled to go to the one or other
side, and its face will almost certainly be brought into contact
with one of the discs. Professor Gray has seen a butterfly
from Canada with a pollen-mass of this species attached to
each eye." H. Hookeri has the muskiness characteristic of the
family but no "strong,
sweet odor," such as is at-
tributed to H. chlorantJia.
A variety, oblongi folia, oc-
curs in New York State,
differing, as the adjective

-. . , . ,t Fig. q.— Habenaria chlorantha. {From Darwin.)

implies, simply in the y rn „ . ..

" ' v J A. Front view of flower. a, a, anther-cells ; d, disc ;

shape of the leaves. «, nectary; »', entrance to nectary ; /, labellum ; s,

J stigma.

The first time I analyzed b. A pollinium (this has hardly a sufficiently elon-

_ r t t 1 » gated appearance). The drum-like pedicel is hidden

a flower of Hookers behind the disc.

Wah^nan'a T was ^tnirk C- Diagram giving a section through the viscid disc,

hLabenana 1 was strucK the drum^like pedicel and the attached end of the

With the prominent beak caudicle. The disc is formed of an upper mem-

r brane, with a layer of viscid matter beneath.

between the bases Of the D. Side view of flower of H. Hookeri.

anther-cells. " In both divisions of the Ophreae," Darwin says,
" namely the species having naked discs, and those having discs
enclosed in a pouch — whenever the two discs come into close
juxtaposition a medial crest or process, sometimes called the
rostellate process, appears. When the two discs stand widely
apart, the summit of the rostellum between them is smooth, or
nearly smooth." In the illustration of 0. mascida, fig. 4, B,
D, we see the developed crest ; in the illustration of Peri-
stylus viridis, fig. 11, " the first stage in the formation of the
folded crest, the overarching summit bent like the roof of
a house." It is his belief that " whilst the two discs were grad-
ually brought together, during a long series of generations, the
intermediate portion or summit of the rostellum became more
and more arched, until a folded crest, and finally a solid ridge

42 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

was formed." He mentions, however, one British species,
Herminium monorchis, " which has two separate and large
discs," and also " a crest or solid ridge, more plainly developed
than might have been expected ; " and have we not in our H.
Hooker i a similar instance ?

" Habenaria cJilorantha depends," says Darwin, "on the
larger nocturnal Lepidoptera," and he shows the contrivances
for securing fertilization to be even more interesting than in
OrcJiis spectabilis. " The two anther cells are separated by a
wide space of connective membrane, and the pollen-masses are
enclosed in a backward, sloping direction. The viscid discs
front each other and stand in advance of the stigmatic surface.
Each disc is circular, and in the early bud consists of a mass ol
cells of which the exterior layers (answering to the pouch in
Orchis) resolve themselves into matter which remains adhesive
for at least twenty-four hours after the pollen-mass has been
removed." The stalk, or caudicle, of the pollen-mass does not
rise directly out of the flat side of the viscid " button," like the
stem on a cherry, but is attached to it by " a short drum-like
pedicel or continuation of the membranous portion of the disc ; "
the shank of the button, to carry out the simile. This stalk is
united " in a transverse direction to the embedded end of the
drum, and its extremity is prolonged, as a bent rudimentary
tail, just beyond the drum. The stalk is thus united to the
viscid disc in a plane at right angles. The drum-like pedicel is
of the highest importance, not only by rendering the viscid disc
more prominent, but on account of its power of contraction.
The pollinia lie inclined backward in their cells, above and some
way on each side of the stigmatic surface : if attached in this
position to the head of an insect, the insect might visit any
number of flowers and no pollen be left," the pollinia " striking
against the anther-cells." But in a few seconds after the pol-
linium is removed " and the inner end of the drum-like pedicel
exposed to the air, one side of the drum contracts and draws

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

43

the thick end of the pollinium inwards so that the stem and the

viscid surface of the disc are no longer parallel as they were at

first, and as they are represented in the

section, fig. 9, C. At the same time, the

drum rotates through nearly a quarter of a

circle, and this moves the stalk downward

like the hand of a clock, depressing the

thick end of the pollinium." A disc once

affixed to the side of an insect's face, by

the time another flower on another plant is

reached, " the pollen-bearing end of the

pollinium will have moved downward and

inward and will infallibly strike .

the broad stigmatic surface between the

anther-cells. The little rudimentary tail

projecting beyond the drum-like pedicel

shows that the disc has been carried a

little inward, and that originally the two

discs stood even further in advance of the

stigma than they do at present."

Habenaria viridis, var. bract eat a, the
Bracted Green Orchis, figures in old bot-
anies as Platanthera bracteata. The Euro-
pean species, H. viridis, according to Dar- h. viridis, var. bracteata.
win, has the viscid under side of each disc " enclosed in a
small pouch ; " "this," says Gray, " is not yet verified in ours."
Although it is usually assigned to the following month, I gen-
erally find the Bracted Green Habenaria blooming with H.
Hookeri, and therefore introduce it here. It has the same green-
ish-yellow colors, but differs in several respects, such as a leafy
stem, bristling bracts, smaller flowers with toothed lip and very
short, two-lobed, bag-shaped nectary which, it would seem, almost
any insect could rifle. Neither beautiful nor singular, as far as
outward appearance goes, it occupies a neutral position, and

Fig. 10.— Bracted Green
Orchis.

44 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

is, on that account, easily overlooked in the woods, but " it
serves," says Professor Gray, " almost completely to exemplify
Mr. Darwin's account, of the mechanism of Peristylus viridis."
The latter authority informs us that the widely separated discs-
have oval balls of viscid matter on the under side, and that
" the upper membrane to which the stem of the pollinium is
attached is of large size relatively to the whole disc, and is
freely exposed to the air. Hence probably it is that the pol-
linia, when removed from their cases, do not become depressed
until twenty or thirty minutes have elapsed. Supposing a pol-
linium to be attached to the head of an insect and to have
become depressed, it will stand at the proper angle vertically
for striking the stigma. But from the lateral position of the
anther-cells, notwithstanding that they converge a little toward
their upper ends, it is difficult to see at first how the pollinia
when removed are afterward placed on the stigma ; for this is
of small size and is situated in the middle of the flower be-
tween the two widely separated discs."

He explains as follows: The base of the
elongated lip forms a rather deep hollow
in front of the stigma, and in this hollow,
but some way in advance of the stigma, a
minute slit-like orifice leads into the nec-
Fig. n.-A. peristylus viki- tary. Hence an insect in order to suck the
«r^th«^uf«,TnSLce nectar would have to bend down its head

to nectary ; W «', nectar se- • f t f the stigma> The lip has a ridge

creting spots ; st, stigma ; /, ° L °

part of lip. down the middle, "which would probably

B. H. VIRIDIS, VAR. BRAC-

teata. induce an insect first to alight on either

side ; but apparently to make sure of this, besides the true
nectary, there are two spots which secrete drops of nectar on
each side at the base of the lip, directly under the two pouches.
An insect alighting " on one side of the lip so as first to lick up
the exposed drop of nectar there, from the position of the
pouch exactly over the drop, would almost certainly " detach

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 45

the pollinium from this side. " If the insect then went to the
mouth of the true nectary " this pollinium would not have had
time to be depressed and to hit the stigma, so that there would
be no self-fertilization. " The insect would then probably suck
the exposed drop of nectar on the other side of the lip, and
perhaps get another pollinium attached to its head ; it would
thus be considerably delayed by having to visit three nectaries.
It would then visit other flowers on the same plant and after-
ward flowers on a distinct plant, and by this time the pollen-
masses will have undergone the movement of depression and
be in a proper position for effecting cross-fertilization. The
secretion of nectar at three separate points — the wide distance
of the two discs, and the slow downward movement of the
stem are all correlated for the same purpose of cross-fertiliza-
tion."

In some papers on The Colors of Flowers published in Nature
during July and August, 1882, Mr. Grant Allen endeavors to
prove that all flowers were originally yellow, and that highly
modified ones, like those of the Orchis family, changed this prim-
itive color for more decided tints to attract the highest forms
of insect life ; and finding a number of examples of flowers more
or less green, such as the European Habenaria viridis, he infers
that they have begun "to degenerate;" have found, that
is, that the bright colors did not serve them as well as the
original yellow, and are working back through the intermediate
green.

No one now holds the opinion of some old writers on Orchids,
that flowers shaped like bees, flies, etc., were formed for the ex-
press purpose of attracting these insects, but that certain colors
are more attractive than others is a well settled point. Sir John
Lubbock considers blue the most attractive ; Muller states that
in the Alps it is yellow rather than white. An article in Nature
{ March 22, 1883) gives abstracts from papers read before a meet-
ing of the Linnaean Society, from which I have made the follow-

46

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

ing extracts — it must be noted that flowers in general are re-
ferred to. " A. W. Bennett had made a series of observations,
Among Lepidoptera (butterflies, moths, etc.), JO visits were made
to red or pink flowers, 5 to blue, 15 to yellow, 5 to white. Dip-
tera (two-winged insects), 9 to red or pink, 8 to yellow, 20 to
white. Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, etc.), 303 to red and pink, 126
to blue, 11 to yellow, 17 to white. Mr. R. N. Christy records in
detail the movements of 76 insects, chiefly bees, and thinks bees
decidedly confine their successive visits to the same species.
Butterflies generally wander aimlessly. He thinks insects are
not guided by color alone, and suggests that sense of smell may
be brought into play. Bees have poor sight for long distances ;
of 55 bumble-bees watched, 26 visited blue flowers ; of these, 12
were methodic, 9 irregularly so, and 5 not at all. 13 visited
white flowers ; 5 were methodic. 1 1 visited yellow flowers ; 5
were methodic. 28 went to red flowers ; 7 methodic, 9 nearly
so."

If we can imagine the months as quarrelling over their floral
offspring, we may be sure that June bitterly disputes the claim
of May to Calypso borcalis. This beautiful little inhabitant of
cold bogs and cedar swamps is the only known Orchid that
reaches 68° north latitude, and while very abundant in Oregon
and the North-west, is so rare in New England that in New
Hampshire, as Prof. Flint writes me, " one may be thoroughly
acquainted with our flora and yet never have seen it." Fortu-
nately, the summer tourist arrives in the White Mountains too
late to find and exterminate the plant, and one can hardly
blame those who do know its stations for refusing to reveal
them. At Bangor, Maine, it sometimes blooms as early as May
3d, and is always in advance of the Showy Orchis. At Middle-
bury, its most southerly known station in Vermont, May 20th is
regarded as exceptionally early ; and finding it on the same date
near Charlotte, in the late spring of 1883, I attributed its
appearance to caprice, as it was several days ahead of the apple-

fec^ *ff!

IP*

Fig. i2.— Calypso borealis.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 49

trees, with which it usually blooms when it does come early, and
quite had the start of the Showy Orchis. If any one objects to
my opinion that the first week in June is the average time for
Calypso in Vermont, he is at liberty to contradict it, but he
must convince me that he has gathered the flower more than
once.

In the genus Calypso, and this, our only species, the sepals and
petals are tinged with pink ; the whitish column is " broadly
winged and petal-like, bearing the lid-like anther just below the
apex ;" the slipper, lined with delicate hairs, is purple-pink at
the heel, inside and out, shading toward the curiously two-
pointed toe into yellowish white. A tuft of bright yellow hairs
and dots of purple or pink adorn the instep It recalls the
Lady's Slippers very strongly, and Linnaeus called it Cypripe-
dium boreale ; but "its closest relations in this country," says
Meehan,* " are perhaps Liparis and Microstylis. Its real rela-
tionship, however, is with Ccelogyne, a genus inhabiting the
warmer parts of the East Indies, and we see by this compari-
son how isolated Calypso must be when we learn that instead
of a warm sub-tropical climate in which most of the Ccelogyne
are found, this one exists only in the extreme north of our
country, and Lapland and Russia." He also quotes, in speak-
ing of its habitat, a writer in the Gardener s Monthly, who
found it in Canada, " on a high limestone ridge . . . sparsely
covered with white pines, in holes caused by tearing up of the
roots and superincumbent earth when forest trees are up-
rooted by storms. The pine needles had collected and decayed
in these holes, " forming a rich vegetable mould covering to a
depth of 5 or 6 inches the broken fragments of limestone left
in the hole." In Vermont there are extensive swamps of
the white cedar, the arbor vitae of our gardens, a tree that
attains considerable size in its native soil, and the black earth

* Native Flowers and Ferns, II. Series.

50 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

formed by the decaying leaves gives birth to this bright hued
Orchid.

Even when her sanctuary is discovered, Calypso does not al-
ways reveal herself. The ground and the fallen tree-trunks are
thickly padded with moss and embroidered with trailing vines
of Snowberry and Linnea ; Painted Trilliums dot with their
white stars the shadows lying under the tangled, fragrant
branches ; the silence of the forest, disturbed only by the chirr
of a squirrel or the sudden jubilance of the oven-bird, envel-
ops you and seems the appropriate accompaniment of such an
expedition. You follow, perhaps, a winding path made by
the wild animals among the underbrush ; moving slowly, or
you easily overlook the dainty blossom, nestling in some soft,
damp nook, and poised lightly on its stem as if ready to flut-
ter away between your covetous fingers ; and when in the
presence of the goddess you are compelled to stoop, whatever
title of dignity you may wear. Come a week later, and she has
vanished : the plantain-like leaf has shrivelled also, and it
will be three months before another arises to tell where the
tiny white bulb is secreted. Take up the bulb and wonder, as
I am sure you will, how it survives the frosts and snows, it
slips so readily out of its loose bed. You will, doubtless, feeL
repaid for a day's journey by the sight of a single specimen,
and will not wonder that the pretty recluse has so wide a
reputation. The most favored person I have yet heard of is
Professor Scribner, of Girard College, who informs me that once
in Maine, he came on a place, " not a foot square, containing
over fifty plants in bloom."

Some verses by Professor Bailey of Providence, that have been
reprinted several times since they first appeared in the N. Y.
Evening Post, deserve quotation whenever Calypso is mentioned,
if for no other reason than to prove that a botanist may love
the object of his study for its own own sake. Struck by their
out-door flavor and picturesqucness, I committed them to mem-

Fig. 13.— Round-leafed Orchis. (Orchis rotundifolia.)

Akethusa bulbosa.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

53

ory years before I ever found the plant, and hope that those
who read them here for the first time will be filled with a desire
to see Calypso for themselves.

Calypso, goddess of an ancient time
(I learn it not from any Grecian rhyme,
And yet the story I can vouch is true),
Beneath a pine tree lost her dainty shoe.

No workmanship of mortal can compare
With what's exhibited in beauty there;
And looking at the treasure 'neath the tree
The goddess' self I almost hope to see.

The tints of purple and the texture fine,
The curves of beauty seen in every line,
With fringes exquisite of golden hue
Perfect the wonders of the fairy shoe.

The goddess surely must have been in haste,
Like Daphne, fleeing when Apollo chased,
And leaving here a slipper by the way,
Intends to find it on another day.

But will she come to seek it here or no ?
The day is lengthening, but I cannot go
Until I see her bring the absent mate
Of this rare beauty, though the time is late.

I watch, but still no classic form I see,
Naught but the slipper 'neath the forest tree :
And so, for fear of some purloining elf,
The precious relic I secure myself.

Another nymph belonging to the same tribe, Arethuseae, and
almost as charming as Calypso, comes into notice, clad in rose-
purple, during the last days of May in Connecticut and Mas-
sachusetts, and about the 7th of June in Central Vermont and

54

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

New Hampshire. Arethusa bnlbosa chooses the open cran-
berry swamp or the scanty shade of tamaracks. Gray calls it
rather scarce or local, but as at Litchfield, Conn., and near
Andover, Mass., where hundreds have been gathered at a time,
it is wont to be abundant in its pet localities, and one is justi-
fied in hunting for it anywhere. Its range in the Eastern
United States is from " North Carolina to Wisconsin and north-
wards," and the unsentimental Hooker states that the bulbs,
with us, " are used to stimulate indolent tumors, and as a cure

for toothache."

The Arethusa is sometimes very
fragrant, as Chapman, Goodale, and
Burroughs in Pepacto7i, testify, and I
regret that it has never been my for-
tune to find a flower possessing that
attraction. White varieties have been
reported from Plymouth and other
places in Massachusetts, but such in-
stances are said to be very rare in the

Fig. 14.
1. Side view of column of Are- case of this Orchid,
thusa. St, stigma. .. . . . ,

2 and 3. Front views of anther. Plymouth has also furnished two

(From Gray's Botanical Text Book.) - , . «l. u r\«.,, U„A -.

4. seed-vessel of Arethusa. abnormal specimens.* One had a

two-flowered scape, the flowers complete and united at the
base ; the other had the flowers, which were both incom-
plete, united throughout nearly the whole length." And even
these are less worthy of record than the oddity discovered
at New Haven, Conn., by Mr. H. M. Denslow, where " two dis-
tinct scapes sprang from the same bulb ; one bearing the usual
single flower, the other, two." The genus Arethusa contains
but two other known species, natives respectively of Japan and
Guatemala, and in this genus, to quote Gray, " the lanceolate
sepals and petals, united at the base, ascend and arch over the

* See Bibliography.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

55

column, which is petal-like, dilated at the apex, and adherent to
the bearded lip below. The anther is lid-like, terminal, decidu-
ous, of two approximate cells, each containing 2 powdery -gran-
ular pollen-masses." This lid-like, deciduous anther is, with
one exception, characteristic of all the members of the tribe.
In A. bulbosa, says Gray, " the 4 loose and soft pellets lie in an
inverted casque-shaped case, hinged at the back, resting on a
shelf, the lower face of which is a glutinous stigma, over the
front edge of which the casque-shaped anther slightly projects."
At the bottom of the cup formed by the united sepals and
petals there is a slight secretion, and the yellow beard on the
lip either acts as a guide to this concealed nectar, or is an addi-
tional attraction. " The an-
ther is raised by the head of
a bee when creeping out of
the gorge of the flower. The
loose pellets are caught upon
the bee's head, to the rough
surface of which they are
liable to adhere lightly, and
so to be carried to the flower
of another individual, there
to be left upon its glut-
inous stigma by the same
upward movement which im-
mediately afterward raises
the anther lid and carries
away its pollen to be trans-
ferred to a third flower, and
so on. The scape rises from
a globular, solid bulb, and
the leaf is solitary, linear,
hidden in the sheaths of the scape, protruding from the upper-
most after flowering."

Fig. 15. Whorled Pogonia.
P. verticillata.

56

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

A nearly related but rarer flower, the Whorled Pogonia, P.
veriicillata, springing from a fibrous root, comes with Arethusa
or follows her pretty closely, and also makes its home in wet
places. In Pogonia, " the only group of which Darwin has
given no account," for he mentions but one species and then
quotes from an American writer, the column arches over the
lip, as in Arethusa, but is " free from it, elongated, club-shaped
and wingless." The anther is also " terminal and lid-like," but
has a stalk, and the powdery-granular pollen-masses are but 2
in number, each occupying a cell. It will be seen from the
illustration how very long the sepals are when compared with
the petals. My sketch was made from a specimen not fully
blown, and the three lobes into which the lip in this species is
divided are folded together too much. A narrow crest runs
down the middle of the lip. Gray calls the flower " dusky
purple," but I should prefer, myself, to describe it as brownish-
purple, while yellowish specimens have been met with, and
Barton's plate represents it as yellow, with the- sepals strongly
tinged with brown. The whorl of leaves beneath does not add
much grace to the flower, and if it were not so stiff we might
call it dishevelled. The whole plant lacks the trimness and
poise of Arethusa.

The occurrence of this Pogonia in the Northern New England
States is a matter of doubt, particularly in Maine, where the
" Portland Catalogue" issued in 1862, and the botanists of the
present day are ranged on opposite sides. From the stations
sent me, I judge this Orchid to be more common in Connecti-
cut and Massachusetts than is generally supposed. It is met
with as far west as Michigan, and as far south as Florida, while
a smaller species, P. affinis, bearing greenish-yellow flowers, is
so dependent on a genial climate that it has been found but
once in New England (at New Haven, Conn.), and, ambitious
as I am, I admit that it hardly seems fair to keep it on our
list.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 57

Some Orchids belonging to the Arethuseae, natives of Aus-
tralia and New Zealand, as described by Darwin, have such
sensitive lips that when touched they spring up, shutting the
insect within the flower and either forcing it against the pollen-
masses, or, as in Cypripedium, compelling it to carry off the
pollen as it escapes by some narrow passage. The lips after a
time, varying in one species " from half an hour to one hour
and a half," re-open and are ready for another visit.

" Few flowers," says a competent writer, " have suffered ruder
divisions at the hands of botanists than Orchids." The Habe-
narias have been peculiarly unfortunate in this respect, but a
change that cannot be regretted was made in 1877, when H.
rotiindifolia, the O. rotundifolia of Pursh, and the P. rotundifolia
of Lindley, was reassigned by Gray as a True Orchis to its
proper place by the side of O. spectabilis, which had been hav-
ing a lonely tims as the sole representative in this part of the
world of a prolific genus. The Round-leafed Orchis lives
on mossy knolls, or tucked away under ferns in damp cedar
woods, and is a small but exceedingly pretty plant. It has but
one leaf; " its lateral sepals spread like those of most European
species ; " its waxy flowers are tinged and the lip is dotted with
purple. Hooker's description, " pale, dirty white," simply ma-
ligns them. If far enough north, for like Calypso this dainty
Orchis requires cold, you will probably gather it before the
Arethusas fade, and in their vicinity.

Any swamp is a treasure-house at this time of year to one
who wades recklessly into it. The treacherous sphagnum,
shading through all the tints of green into rich reds and
umbers, lures you on by offering a bird's nest here and a bizarre
mushroom there, till wet feet seem a very small price to pay
for so great an amount of pleasure. The Linnea swings her
fragrant bells; the Bunch-berry masses her involucres into
a semblance of the snow-drifts that lay there not so very long
ago; the Pitcher-plant offers her brimming beakers; slender

58

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

ferns and plumed sedges sway in the wind. With so much
that is immediately presented to the eye, how can the Tway-
blade, Listera cordata, tiniest of our Orchids, hope to turn your
steps toward her bower? True, you may not appreciate her
after you have brushed away the branches of Kalmia and Lab-
rador Tea, and found her to be a plainly dressed little thing,
perhaps six inches high, but she is entitled to as much respect as
any of her race. L. cordata, the Long-lipped or Heart-leaved
Listera, as Barton calls it, came, in 1883, with Calypso, but in
our Vermont lowlands generally accompanies C. arictinitm. It
is common all through the Green Mountains during July, par-
ticularly under the low spruces on the top of Mansfield and
Camel's Hump, and, through July and August, may be looked
for in the White Mountains, where it reaches an elevation of
3,000 feet to my knowledge, and probably climbs still higher, as
it requires little sustenance except moisture. Beyond New
England it extends as far north as Alaska.

The genus Listera brings to our notice another tribe, that of
the Neottieae, containing, in this country, Goodyera, Spiranthes
and Listera, and standing according to structure between the
Ophrydeae and Arethuseae. The Neottieae have " the anther
attached to the back of the column, erect and parallel with
the stigma ; the 2 cells approximate, the pollen rather loose
or powdery, or elastically cohering." The genus Listera
has among other characteristics, the " lip mostly drooping,
2-lobed or 2-cleft ; the column wingless; the stigma with a
rounded beak ; the pollen-masses joined to a minute gland, and
the roots fibrous." Of the three species mentioned in Gray, we
have two in New England, and Listera cordata has the same
elaborate mechanism as the British Listera ovata.

" The rostellum is of large size, convex in front and concave
behind, with its sharp summit slightly hollowed out on' each
side ; it arches over the stigmatic surface. The anther, situated
behind the rostellum and protected by a broad expansion of

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

59

the top of the short column, opens in the bud. When the
flower is fully expanded, the pollen-masses are left quite free,
supported behind by the anther cells, and lying in front against
the concave back of the rostellum, with their upper pointed
ends resting on its crest. Each pollen-mass is almost divided
into two. The few elastic threads of the grains are weak, and
large masses of pollen can be broken off easily. The lip has two
basal lobes which curve up on each side, and these would com-
pel an insect to approach the rostellum straight in front. As

Fig. 16. — Listera ovata. {From Muller.)
i. Side view of unfertilized flower : ov, ovary.

2. Front view, after the pollen-masses, /<?, have been removed from the anther. The flat
rostellum (r) is bent forward and partly conceals the stigma (st). (Magnified one-half as much
as i.) «, nectary.

3. Pollen-masses adhering to a needle (greatly enlarged), c, cement.

4. Grammoptera Icevis, with a number of pollen-masses on its head.

soon as the flower opens, if the exquisitely sensitive rostellum
be touched ever so lightly, a large drop of viscid fluid is instan-
taneously expelled, and, on exposure to the air, in two or three
seconds the drop sets hard, soon assuming a purplish brownish
tint. As the pointed tips of the pollen-masses lie on the crest
of the rostellum, they are always caught by the exploded drop."
This drop, then, does the work of a viscid disc for the pollen-
masses.

"When the anther-cells open, the rostellum slowly curves
over the stigmatic surface, so that its explosive crest stands at
a little distance from the summit of the anther; and this is very
necessary, otherwise the summit would be caught by the viscid

50 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

matter (which expels the drop) and the pollen forever locked
up. Small insects alight on the lip for the sake of the nectar
copiously secreted (by the furrow on it) ;. as they lick this, they
slowly crawl up its narrowed surface until their heads stand
directly beneath the overarching crest of the rostellum ; when
they raise their heads they touch the crest ; this then explodes
(expelling the viscid drop), and the pollen-masses are instantly
and firmly cemented to their heads.

" The rostellum, which is naturally somewhat arched over the
stigma, quickly bends forward and downward at the moment of
the explosion so as then to stand at right angles to the surface
of the stigma. When the rostellum is touched so quickly that
the pollen-masses are not removed, they become fixed to the
rostellum and by its movement are likewise drawn a little for-
ward. In the course of some hours, or of a day, the rostellum
not only slowly recovers its original position (pushing back the
pollen-masses, and while this is going on, Muller adds in his
account, the groove of the lip is secreting fresh honey), but
becomes quite straight and parallel to the stigmatic surface.
The downward movement of the rostellum protects the stigmas
of the young flowers of a plant from impregnation, and the
upward movement leaves the stigmatic surface of older flowers,
now rendered more adhesive, perfectly free for pollen to be left on
it. The pollen-masses, once cemented to an insect's forehead, will
remain attached until brought into contact with the stigma of
a mature flower; then the weak, elastic threads which tie the
grains together " are ruptured. Sometimes an insect is too
feeble to remove the pollen-masses, and one was found by Dar-
win " vainly struggling to escape, with its head cemented by
the hardened viscid matter to the crest of the rostellum and to
the tips of the pollen-masses, where it miserably perished." He
also speaks of the number of spider-webs spread over the
plants of Listcra ovata, "as if the spiders were aware how
attractive the Listera is to insects."

Fig. 17.— Twayblade. (Listera cordata.)

LlSTERA CONVALLARIOIDES-
LlPARIS LCESELII.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 63

"All dull yellow (dirty-yellow, brownish-yellow, yellowish-
white) flowers," says Muller * giving a long list of genera which
includes Neottia, "are entirely or almost entirely avoided by
beetles ; closely allied white flowers are visited by beetles, more
or less to their injury ; and brightly colored flowers, even though
they are scentless and offer no honey, or none that is accessible,
attract beetles in numbers. If (as he supposes) beetles are only
or mainly attracted to flowers by bright colors, dull yellow must
be an advantageous color for plants with freely exposed honey,
protecting them from these injurious guests. And the fact that
dull yellow colors only occur in flowers with exposed honey
lends support to this view." Speaking in another place \ of
the effect of conspicuousness in inducing insects' visits, he says:
" . . . those insects whose bodily organization is least
adapted for a floral diet are also least ingenious and skilful
in seeking and obtaining their food, so that with anthophilous
insects intelligence seems to advance pari passu with structural
adaptation," hence, " short-lipped insects, little or not at all
specialized for a floral diet, can usually only find fully exposed
honey, such as Listera (and others) afford ; honey still easily
accessible but not directly visible to them is passed by."

He says again: "Insects in cross-fertilizing flowers endow
them with offspring which, in the struggle for existence, van-
quish those individuals of the same species which are the off-
spring of self-fertilization. The insects must, therefore, operate
by selection in the same way as do unscientific cultivators
among men who preserve the most pleasing or most useful
specimens, and reject or neglect others. In both cases, selec-
tion in course of time brings those variations to perfection
which correspond to the taste or needs of the selective agent."
As insects became more skilful and intelligent, flowers became
more varied in color, more complicated in structure, etc. "The

* Fertilization of Flozuers, p. 574. f Page 571.

64

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

Ichneiimonidce at first surpassed all other visitors in observation
and discernment, and were thus able to produce inconspicuous
flowers which escaped the notice of other visitors. On the
appearance of sand-wasps and bees these inconspicuous flowers
were banished by competition to the less frequented localities
(c. g, Listera to shady woods)."

Our larger species, Listera convallarioidcs, due ten days or so
later in damp places along brooks, has
a longer column than L. cordata, and
the flowers are somewhat pubescent or
downy. L. convallarioidcs, as I learn
partly from the Report of the Geological
^§jh x Exploration of the 40th Parallel, has

^^4Yr^ the following extended range: "Can-

ada to North Carolina (rare in lower
New England for some mysterious rea-
son), westward to Rocky Mountains and
Unalaska. Found in the East Hum-
boldt Mountains at an elevation of 7,000
feet." Both our species are so faintly
colored that it is almost absurd to speak
of them as having color at all, and they
are so fragile, watery and translucent in substance that it is
impossible to represent them in a sketch without exaggerating
their size. I have grouped them with a species of Liparis, or
Twayblade, L. Lceselii, a small, coarse herb with the greenish-
yellow colors of the Listeras, and like them a dweller in wet
places.

In Liparis, which is a genus of the tribe Malaxideae, " the
anther is attached to the apex of the elongated, incurved col-
umn ; the 4 pollen-masses arranged in one row (2 to each cell)
have no stalks, connecting tissues or gland." These herbs have
" solid bulbs." The lip is spurless as in Listera ; and in L. Loss-
elii, whose flowers have a combative air like so many little drag-

Fig. 18.

1, 2. Flower of Liparis Lee
selii.

3 Seed-vessels of same.

4. Flower of Listera conval-
larioides. (Anther removed.)

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

65

ons, there is a furrow or median line on the lip, corresponding
probably to the nectar-secreting groove in Listera, and as the
edges of the lip curve up at the sides, an insect would have but
one easy mode of entrance offered, and in crawling up this pas-
sage-way would be led directly under the anther. Barton gives
a fairly good plate of this Liparis, calling it Malaxis longifolia,
the Long-leaved Malaxis, and describes the root as " a roundish
bulb, sending off a few radicles and a large offset, the germ of
a new plant." England produces a smaller species, and this,
together with Listera ovata, is considered by Grant Allen to
be degenerating like H. viridis.

Our more common species, L. lilii-
folia, Barton's Lily-leaved Malaxis, with
brownish-purple, larger-lipped flowers,
follows L. Lceselii in the course of a
week or so. This species grows as far
south as Georgia ; L. Lceselii ranges
from New England and the Middle
States to Wisconsin and above the
50th parallel. I was quite impressed by
the diminutive size of Listera cordata
until I opened an herbarium containing
among its Orchids a row of fully devel-
oped plants related to Liparis {Malaxis
palndosa from Scotland), few of them
over an inch high.

Some pasture, threaded by sluggish
streams, or some wet road-side, will,
about the middle of June, afford the
next Orchid and the first of the genus
Spiranthes or Ladies' Tresses; 5. latifolia, the Broad-leaved
Spiranthes. The small, white blossoms, climbing spirally up
their spike, and suggesting to a highly imaginative person a
lock of hair, would seem to have originated the popular name ;

-^%^J

Fig. 19. — Lily-leaved Liparis.
L. liliifolia.

66 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

but this is evidently only a natural corruption of the name
given in the old botanies, Ladies' Traces, which likened the
arrangement of the flowers to the traces or strings of a
bodice.

Spiranthes is intermediate between Goodyera and Listera.
" In Spiranthes," says Meehan, " there are callous protuber-
ances at the base of the lip ; the other genera have none.
Listera has sepals and petals spreading, the petals of the others
are ringent (or gaping) at the base. In some cases of Spi-
ranthes, the rachis, or that part of the stem to which the flowers
are attached, is perfectly straight and only the flowers seemed
coiled around it, while in other species it is screw-like and seems
to carry the flowers with it as it coils." " Gaping " describes
most admirably the appearance of the tubular blossoms. The
stem of 5. latifolia is " naked or leafy below ; the roots clus-
tered-tuberous," to quote superficially from Gray. The arrange-
ments for fertilization are probably similar to those of 5. gracilis
and S. cemua, and I reserve a description of the process until
I come to those later species. Meehan states that these
Orchids are seldom, if ever, obtained beyond the Mississippi.

I have found Spiranthes latifolia quite high up on mountain
roads when hunting for another Orchid that requires cold and
dampness, Habenaria dilatata. The latter, it is safe to assume,
is associated in many a mind with a Maine carry, a White
Mountain flume, or a Green Mountain notch. Perhaps you
recall the very spot, a green nook near the limpid pool in
which you dipped your hands; or it may have been higher up
where white-throated sparrows were whistling through the mist,
and icy springs came trickling through beds of moss and snow-
berry, and the bleak summit was almost gained.

H. dilatata, the Northern White Orchis, has been often con-
founded with H. Jiyperborea, the Northern Green Orchis, as by
Sir William Hooker, who feared it was only a luxuriant form
of the latter, and by Dewey, who, in his Herbaceous Plants

i

ffW.

r

M/\

Fig. 20.— Northern- White Orchis. (Habenaria dilatata.)
Three-toothed Orchis. (Habenaria tridentata.)

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 69

of Massachusetts, called it "unattractive," while Mrs. Lincoln,
whose Lectures on Botany were published at Hartford in
1835, thought the difficulty bridged by her statement : " in the
woods the flowers are green." H. dilatata is one of the most
stately children of the forest, and her velvety spike, springing
out of rank sedges and ferns, catches the eye at once, or where
the plant grows profusely, so perfumes the air as to need no
other sign of its presence. Its color is usually pure white, but
Mrs. Sarah C. Purington, of Auburn, Maine, writes me that she
once found this species deeply tinged with pink-purple. As
Gray well says : " the spike is wand-like ; " both bracts and spurs
are short ; and there is " a trowel-shaped conspicuous beak (ros-
tellum) between the bases of the anther-cells." H. hyperborea,
which, as has been intimated, comes at the same time and gen-
erally in the same places, is more numerously flowered ; the lip
is tapering instead of " dilated ;" and the stem is sheathed with
broader leaves. The Report of the Geological Exploration of the
40th Parallel gives the range of these two Habenarias as fol-
lows: " H. hyperborea ; Border States and Canada to Greenland
and the Arctic Circle (Iceland also has its H. hyperborea) and
Unalaska. The Saskatchawan region and Washington Territory
and southward on the mountains to California (?) and Nevada.
In Nevada found at an elevation of 8,000 feet, as July-Aug. H.
dilatata; Nevada, 6,000 to 9,000 feet, July-Sept. Posterior
sepal not hooded." The chief difference between the species,
however, is that H. dilatata cannot fertilize itself, while H.
hyperborea " habitually " does.

" H. dilatata has," says Gray, " its anther-cells near together
and almost parallel, and the very large strap-shaped discs are
parallel, vertical and near together, and placed just over the
back side of the narrow orifice of the spur, looking forward ;
they are nearly as long as the pollen-mass and its stalk together ;
the latter is short and flat and attached to its disc just below
the summit of the latter. No movement of depression or of

;o

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

rotation was detected. The throat of the flower is a narrow
chamber ; and the narrow stigma and the discs lie so low in it
that fertilization cannot be effected without insect aid, and this
can be given only by means of a proboscis. We find accord-
ingly, that a pig's bristle cannot be thrust down to the bottom
of the spur and withdrawn without bringing away one of the
pollen-masses. But the anther-cells open early and the pollen-
masses are often dislodged as soon as the flower opens. Yet
from the arrangement of the parts, we think that they can
never fall over upon their own stigma as they do in the
allied

" Plat ant her a (Nabenaria) hyperborca. Here the lip, spreading
from the base, leaves a more open throat, the more exposed
stigma is broad and transverse, the anther-cells are more diver-
gent, and from1 the curvature of the flower, more overhanging,
and the stalks of the pollen-masses very slender and weak.
Thus disposed, the pollen-masses very commonly fall out of the
anther-cells while the tip of the lip is still held under the point
of the upper sepals and petals, or even in the closed buds, and
when the lip is disengaged and becomes recurved, or even be-
fore, the pollen-masses are apt to topple over and fall upon the
broad stigma beneath." In this respect the plant is much like
Ophrys opifcra in Darwin's treatise, but H. hyper borea is also
fertilized by outside aid. " The packets of pollen are looser
and the threads that attach them to the stalk weaker than
usual ; while the discs (which are oval and rather small) retain
for a good while their viscidity, so that a fitting insect on visit-
ing the open flowers, in which the pollen-masses have already
fallen over on to the broad stigma underneath, will yet catch
one or both of the discs upon his proboscis, carry off the pol-
len-masses (which may be readily detached from the stigma,
leaving some pollen behind) and apply them in succession to
the stigmas of other flowers of other individuals, and thus
effect occasionally the crossing so uniformly effected in most

Fig. 2i.— Putty-root. (Aplectrum hyemale.)
Leaf, Flowers and Seed-vessels.
Large Coral-root. (C. multiflora)

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 73

species of the tribe. We have observed that this species is
very fertile, usually maturing all its ovaries."

The genus Corallorhiza (Coral-root), northern or extra-tropi-
cal in range and containing about ten species, has four repre-
sentatives in the North-eastern United States, three of them oc-
curring in New England. This genus follows Liparis in Gray's
Botany; the plants are supposed to be root-parasitical,* and
send up " a simple scape, furnished with
sheaths instead of leaves, from a much
branched and toothed coral-like root-stock."
The lip, " slightly adherent to the base of the
2-edged straightish column," "is often more
or less extended into a protuberance or
" short spur coalescent with the ovary." The
anther is " terminal, lid-like." The 4 pollen-
masses are " soft-waxy or powdery, and have FlG. 22._RooT OF
no stalks or connecting tissue." C. innata Corallorhiza.
(Early Coral-root), and C. odontorhiza (Dragon-claw, Coral-tooth,
Small Late Coral-root) are mentioned together here, although
the latter belongs rather to July, in Vermont, because the next
Orchid mentioned is a near relative and might be mistaken for
them. C. innata, which Hooker says closely accords with the
European species, is a low dingy-green herb bearing a few spur-
less flowers, and found in swampy or wet shaded places. Grow-
ing as far south as Georgia, it yet follows Calypso across the
60th parallel, but notwithstanding this extensive range, it is
rare. C. odontorhiza is found in Florida, and Chapman makes
the singular statement that although vernal in the North it does
not bloom till September and October in the South. This
Coral-root has a depression where its flower-spur should be.
From its greater height, which may be sixteen inches, and its

* Sachs {Botanical Text Book) calls the Coral-roots, particularly C. innata,
" saprophytes," because they " make use . . .of the material of other plants
which are already in a state of decomposition."

j a THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

more numerous and purplish blossoms, it has a better claim to
attention, but I fear that neither species will ever have its
praises celebrated in any but the heaviest prose.

Aplcctrum hycmale, the Winter Aplectrum, has a bulb like a
crocus, and on digging this up, two or more are found con-
nected with it, as offsets, generally in a horizontal line like
beads on a string. (See root of Tipularia, fig. 27.) Each
" requires two years for its perfect development, and dies at
the end of the third," after producing a scape of flowers; and
as each year one bulb shrivels and another is added, the scape
may almost be said to keep in motion. The character of the
root has given the popular name of " Adam and Eve " to this
Orchid, and the bulbs are worn as amulets by the southern
negroes and poor whites, who also place the (separated) bulbs
in water and according as Adam or Eve " pops up," calculate
the chances of retaining a friend's affection, of " getting work,
or of living in peace with neighbors ; " while Pursh tells us that
the sticky matter of which they are composed is mixed with
water and used by thrifty housewives to mend their crockery,
and Putty-root is the more widely known name at the North.
Like Calypso borealis, it sends up its single distinct leaf at the
end of summer or early in September, in rich dry woods. A
stiff, dark purple horn first pricks the ground, rises slowly, for
it has a long and severe life before it, and when it grudgingly
uncurls, shows a coarse leaf, greenish on the upper side and
threaded with numerous white veins. Crushed down and
bleached by the snows, it presents itself in the spring in a
very wrinkled condition, holding on bravely till the plant
flowers, when it withers away. Barton styles it the " Double-
bulbed Corallorhiza," and criticises Pursh and Willdenow for
endowing it with two leaves. The flowers resemble in shape
those of C. odontorhiza, and, as the Greek substantive signifies,
are spurless. The sepals and petals are dull yellow tipped
with brown ; the lip white, flecked with purple, and the per-

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND

75

fume delightful. The lip is free from the column, but the
flowers and scape have the general structure of those of the
Coral-roots.

While the Aplectrum grows as far north in America as the
Saskatchewan Valley, it is rare in New England. The earliest
date obtained from Connecticut is June 6th, and in Central
Vermont and Western New Hampshire its mean time of bloom-
ing would appear to be June 20th, though once in a while it
ignores set times and celebrates its birthday in May. A Michi-
gan botanist writing to the American Naturalist some years ago,
called it " a shy bloomer." It is very abundant near Detroit,
but he had watched for years without seeing any flowers, and
although buds formed on transplanted specimens they never
matured. I have been more fortunate myself, both in finding
flowers from year to year and in transplanting, but have always
been struck with the disproportion between the number of
flower stalks and the number of leaves. The bulbs have a rank
smell, and to my thinking are fully as disagreeable to the taste,
but I know persons who profess to be fond of them.

The silent procession seems to be dwindling down and be-
coming sad-colored, but it is time to expect the most regal of
our Orchids, the Showy Lady's Slipper, C. spectabile, whose
tropical lustiness of growth one can hardly attribute to our
climate. The first time I found the plant, I was working my
way out of a low, wet wood, where the osmundas grew tall and
palm-like, and coming suddenly upon a group of what were
unmistakably Lady's Slippers, I was as startled as though a
gaudy cockatoo had fluttered by. Already, it was the last of
May, the broad plaited leaves reached, on their stalwart stems,
above my knees. Could this be their natural home, and if so,
must they not have made a compact with August and be wait-
ing for an intense heat to call out their great flowers ?

This species displays a crimped, shell-shaped lip that varies
from a rich pink-purple blotched with white to pure white ;

75 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

indeed, as C. album, it was known in England before 1770,
Two blossoms often, sometimes three or four, are found on
the same plant, and I have been interested to learn from a
friend that he broke off a bud from a root he was transplanting
one fall and found on cutting it open, two embryo flowers
packed away there, and even saw their pollen-masses without
the aid of a glass.

C. spectabile comes as early as the 20th of June in southern
Connecticut, and, in early seasons, has been gathered on the
same date in Penobscot Co., Maine, where, says Miss Furbish,
" whole swamps appear to be devoted to it, and it really impedes
progress by its height and abundance." The 28th will answer
for Central Vermont and New Hampshire, but the White
Mountains, I think, rarely afford it before July. Its range,
elsewhere, is Wisconsin, Illinois and " southward along the Alle-
ghanies." I have read of a supposed case of poisoning by C.
spectabile and C. pubescens, and am eager in their behalf to shift
the blame upon the Poison Ivy and Poison Sumach, old offend-
ers, generally found skulking in the same localities. The False
Hellebore, a stout, coarse perennial, very abundant in low
ground, bears when young and before its racemes appear, a su-
perficial likeness to the Lady's Slippers, and I do not wonder
that it is considered a prize by the inexperienced who are
searching for C. spectabile.

Prof. E. S. Bastin, of the University of Chicago, has kindly
allowed me to make extracts from a paper read by him at the
last meeting of the Social Science Association, in which a re-
markable specimen of C. spectabile is described. It was " found
in June, 1SS1, in the pine barrens on the southern end of
Lake Michigan. The monstrosity was an almost regular flower
growing on the same stem with one of the ordinary form. It
possessed three broadly lanceolate sepals, all alike and not at
all united. It had no lip, but three regularly formed pure
white petals all of the same size and shape, as long, but some-

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 77

what narrower than the sepals and alternating with them.
Representing the first circle of stamens were two, instead of
one, fleshy dilatated triangular bodies occupying the normal
position, that is alternating with the petals. They resembled
in thickness and in general shape the one in the normal flower,
and were also spotted like it, but were somewhat smaller and
not bent, but erect or nearly so. The second staminal circle
consisted of three fully developed stamens inserted on the
column opposite the petals and closely resembling those of the
normal flower in structure, except that coalescence with the style
(the part of the pistil that bears the stigma) was less complete,
and the connective or projection at the back of the anther was
rather more distinct. The stigma was very nearly equally
three-lobed, and the lobes were conspicuous and arranged alter-
nately with the stamens. The column was but slightly bent,
the ovary scarcely twisted, and the flower was but slightly bent
to one side. Here, in a genus affording some of the most strik-
ingly irregular flowers in nature, was a flower all but regular,
and unsymmetrical only in not possessing even a vestige of the
third stamen of the first staminal circle. This specimen tends
to establish the conclusion, if regarded as an instance of rever-
sion to an ancestral type, that the large, fleshy dilatated trian-
gular organ of the ordinary flower is the rudiment of a stamen
belonging to the outer staminal circle. No doubt the organ orig-
inated by the disappearance of the anther and the broadening
and thickening of the filament and its extension, the connective.
In fact, in the monstrosity under consideration, the fertile sta-
mens were, when viewed from the back, very much like minia-
tures of the two rudiments of the outer circle.

" The missing stamen of the outer circle had left no trace be-
hind, and there was no evidence, either from difference in size or
difference in venation of the petals, that it had become confluent
with one of them. It would seem probable that the lip, if it is
a compound organ at all, is made up merely of the lower petal

78

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAXD.

united to the stamen of the inner circle that would normally
come opposite to it."

Mr. S. I. Smith, of Norway, Maine, in some notes read before
the Boston Society of Natural History, in 1863, says that he
came on a bunch of this Lady's Slipper, " which was almost
covered with numbers of a minute flower-beetle, apparently
attracted by the nectar-like fluid that moistens the long hairs
in the labellum. These beetles were crawl-
ing over the flowers in every direction ; and
presently one crawled from one of the
lateral petals up the column, over one of the
pollinia with some difficulty, and out upon
the stigma. This was repeated three or
four times by different individuals ; some
returning by way of the column, others
passing over the sterile stamen on to the
labellum. Several beetles passed from the
lateral petals down to the labellum without
touching the pollinia or the stigma. Only
two were seen to alight upon any of the
flowers ; and one of these went into the
labellum without touching the pollinia or
stigma ; the other passed over both. Near-
ly all the beetles, when examined with a
lens, were found to have little masses of
pollen attached to them ; and many could scarcely walk for
this reason. Most of the flowers on which the beetles were
found had been fertilized, and under a strong lens showed
minute particles of pollen among the sharp pointed papillae
which beset the stigma. Of many flowers from different places,
nearly all had the pollen removed in minute particles from the
anther to the stigma ; but in two or three instances the pollen
had been removed in one mass as if by some large insect."
Turn now from this, our largest Orchid, to the Dwarf

1

Fig. 23.— Dwarf Orchis
Habenaria obtusata.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. jg

Orchis, H. obtusata, contented with a few inches in stature
and two quiet colors, green and white. "The flowers are
rather large for the size of the plant ; the anther-cells are
curved like a bow and widely separated." Sir William Hooker
somewhere gives a plate of this Habenaria, and in an enlarged
drawing of the lip shows two oval spots at the base — these
serving, probably, to attract insects by secreting nectar. You
come across this species almost anywhere in the Green Moun-
tains (particularly on Mansfield, Camel's Hump and Killington
Peak) from the last of June, on through July; in the sub-
Alpine region of the White Mountains in August ; and early
in the same month at Mt. Desert. Gray follows this Habe-
naria north of Lake Superior, and the Geological Exploration
of the 40th Parallel made known its existence in Colorado.

There is a sandy tract of country lying to the north-east of
Burlington, where patches of original forest alternate with
second-growth timber, and roads go zigzagging as if trying to
find their way out — a fascinating exploring ground if one is
not vexed by the dust and the depth to which his wheels sink,
because apparently so unpromising. I was not favorably dis-
posed toward it, when introduced, one day toward the middle
of July, for I was returning from Mt. Mansfield, and the
impressions produced by the mighty scenery left behind ; the
gorges, the leafy silences, the contest of mist and wind on the
summit, still had me in their hold, but as we turned from the
highway into a narrow track and wound under low-hanging
boughs of pine and oak, the despised region began to rejoice
and blossom at every step. In the grassy openings where
feasts of late strawberries tempted us to loiter, stood row after
row of Turk's-cap lilies, their brilliancy somewhat softened by
the bindweeds that thrust up their cool white cups among the
ferns already dappled with brown and gold. At last we parted
the branches and came out on the shore of a little pond, so
lonely and so black that it would have depressed us had it not

3q THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

been dotted with water-lilies and spangled along its marshy
edge with the leaves of the sun-dew, and here, side by side,
grew the objects of our search, Calopogon pidchelliis and Pa-
gonia ophioglossoides, whose harsh, and to me always irritating
names, seemed at that time peculiarly inharmonious.

These Orchids may be styled inseparable, for there are few
extensive bogs that do not afford both ; and the more danger-
ous the morass, the more untrustworthy the scow you have
discovered on the shore of lake or creek, the more confident
you may be that your prize is awaiting you — just out of reach.
The genus Calopogon is represented in the Eastern United
States by three or four species, but one of which favors New
England, and this, sometimes known as the
Grass Pink, wears colors that one would not
naturally select to go together. Nature has
combined the white and yellow of the bearded
lip and the purple-pink of the other parts with
fig. 24.-Flower of her usual boldness, but the result is not suf-
c. pulchellus. ficiently agreeable to cause us to notice the
flower particularly, on that account alone. The peculiarity of
the genus is that the ovary is not twisted as in all our other
Orchids, and the lip is therefore in its proper place on the
upper side.

"The type of most Orchids is ternary," says Meehan, in
Native Flowers and Ferns ; " in other words, three leaves form
a verticil in them whenever the spiral growth is rapidly
arrested, and the spiral coil is brought down to a plane. We
generally look for three leaves on the flower stem of an Orchid
of this kind ; but in this species, C. pulchellus, only the central
one has been developed, while the lower has advanced no
farther than a reddish-brown sheath, and the third or upper one
has been so entirely absorbed by the stem that only a small
reddish-brown spot is left to show where the leaf might have
been. In the flower, however, the ternary character is better

Fig 25.— Adder' s-mouth Pogonia. (P. ophioglossoMes.)
Grass Pink. (Calopogon pulchellus.)

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 83

developed. The lowermost division (lowermost in the accom-
panying figure), and the two upper ones form the lower series
or verticil, or, as it would be called in other orders, the calyx.
The lower leaf (lower as before noted), if the 3 were drawn
out on a stem as real green leaves, would be the upper or 3d in
the cycle, and we see that it has begun to change its form. The
next drawing in of the spiral twist, which has resulted in
another cycle or verticil of 3 leaves brought down to one
plane, has ended by bringing the upper normal leaf, and the
most changeable, as we have already seen, just opposite to
where the twisting of the lower verticil ended. ... In
other Orchids . . . another twist takes place in the
ovarium just as the petals are about to open and after all the
twisting so far described has been done, and the result is that
the lip (which in our flower is the uppermost leaf of the 2d
verticil) assumes the position of the lowermost part of the
flower. In Calopogon the extra twist has not occurred, and the
result of this limited torsion is that the lip forms the upper
instead of the lower part of the flower."

Some Orchids have the foot-stalk twisted instead of the
ovarium, Darwin says. In either case, " from slow changes in
the form or position of the petals, or from new sorts of insects
visiting the flowers, it might be advantageous to the plant that
the labellum should resume its normal position on the upper
side of the flower, as is actually the case with Malaxis paludosa
and some species of Catasetum, etc. This change . . . might
be simply effected by the continued selection of varieties
which had their ovaria less and less twisted ; but if the plant
only afforded varieties with the ovarium more twisted, the
same end could be attained by the selection of such variations,
until the flower was turned completely round on its axis."
Thus in Malaxis paludosa, " the labellum has acquired its pres-
ent upward position by the ovarium being twisted twice as
much as usual."

84 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

In newly opened flowers of Calopogon the lip bends over the
column, and Professor Goodale,* speaking as if this were its
ordinary position, calls it " an arched roof decorated with at-
tractive colors." Gray describes it as " distant from the col-
umn," and I do not think, myself, that the arched position is
retained very long, but that the lip usually appears as an invit-
ing signal, held aloft above an open-faced, easily entered flower.
In Calopogon, the column, free from the lip or barely hinged to
it, curves like the keel of a boat, and is lobed on either side of
the apex where the lidded 2-celled anther with its 4 soft pollen-
masses, " lightly connected by delicate threads," is situated.
As Goodale expresses it : " the lateral stamens (seen in Cypri-
pedium) are missing, but the one corresponding to the sterile
stamen in Cypripedium is here that bearing the pollen." The
stigmatic surface lies in front of the anther, between the
lobes.

"The anther," says Hervey, in Beautiful Wild Flowers,
" is a thin-walled cup, hinged on its back with the extreme
end tissues of the column. It lies in a little hollow and
faces inward toward a thin partition wall which is raised up at
that point across the axis of the column. The stigma is on
the other surface of this partition, and of course still nearer
the centre of the flower. The ripened anther, when touched
by a body moving in a direction away from the centre of the
flower, will roll upward on its hinge with the greatest possible
ease, exposing the pollen-masses to contact with the disturbing
body. . . . The stigmatic surface which . . . lies on
the other side of the wall that closes the mouth of the anther
is in exactly the right place and position to be fertilized by
pollen from another flower upon the under surface of his (the
insect's) body . . . and he will most certainly touch the
anther at the end of the column with that part of his body.'*

The scape rises from a small bulb, an offset from that of the
* Wild Flowers of America.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 85

previous year, and as this Orchid bears from 2 to 9 flowers it is
naturally more abundant than the Pogonia in their locality ;
indeed, Meehan says, it rarely fails to perfect its seed-vessels,
and he also calls it fragrant, a compliment that has been paid
by Burroughs, as well ; and here again I fail to agree, deriving
much consolation from the recent editions of Gray's Manual,
which have dropped the adjective used in former years. The
Adder's-mouth or Snake-mouth Pogonia, P. op/iiog/ossoides,
on the other hand, always has a decided odor like that of
violets, and I recall no wild flower of as pure a pink unless it is
the Sabbatia (chloroides). Barton's conscientious attempts at
description delight me, and in this case, his " peach-blossom
red " would probably satisfy most masculine admirers of the
Pogonia. To the yellow bearded lip that makes the Arethusa
so bright, it adds a pretty tuft of purple-pink, and if the Are-
thusa is striking in its appearance, this Pogonia is to be praised
for its refinement. It figures as an Arethusa, in old botanies,
but, to recall one point of difference ; in that genus, it will be
remembered, the base of the lip adheres to the column. Gray
mentions a " monster " flower, found in New York State,
which had "two additional lips and some other petaloid
parts." The root of this species consists of long, worm-like
fibres.

Outside of New England, C. pulchelhis ranges from Florida,
through Arkansas and Nebraska to Minnesota, and as P. ophio-
glossoides is found in Florida, I take it that it keeps the Calo-
pogon company westward. I have seen specimens of this
Pogonia from Japan, and should think it would appeal strongly
to the native artists as a subject for caricature or realistic
treatment, but as yet I have not recognized it on any vase
or fan.

In the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History
(Vol. IX., 1863), Dr. Samuel H. Scudder gives the following ac-
count of the fertilization of this Pogonia : " The flower is

86 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

thrust out at nearly right angles to the upright stem, the col-
umn being a little raised from the horizontal ; the shield-shaped
stigmatic surface is situated at the upper front portion of the
column, which is surmounted by a pretty deep clinandrum with
an elevated, jagged border, and to the hind part of this, the
curiously shaped auriculated anther is attached by a narrow
elastic hinge which compels the anther-lid to remain deeply
seated in the clinandrum, whose thin, jagged edges border it on
every side. Upon the under surface of the anther-lid, as it
thus lies, are situated the two bunches of pollen, confluent,
forming a prominent oval mass, which a slight touch may re-
move. The thin edges of the clinandrum do not border the
anther-lid equally on every side, for if it were so, the raising of
the lid would brush the prominent pollen-masses against the
front edge, causing the pollen to fall useless into the bottom of
the pit, and thus render the plant self-destructive : to obviate
this, the edge of the clinandrum in front is hollowed and thrust
forward slightly, leaving sufficient room for the passage of the
pollen-masses at the raising of the lid : the resulting space is
not, however, left completely open, but as if to prevent the ac-
cidental removal of the pollen-masses, the lower front edge of
the anther-lid is furnished with a row of fringe of elongated
papillae, quite effectually closing the opening. So by this means,
although the masses of pollen and the stigmatic surface are in
close contiguity, they are entirely prevented by the exact struct-
ure and sculpture of the parts of the flower from ever com-
ing in contact with one another except through foreign aid ;
for the pollen-masses are seen to be completely packed away in
a deep pit, pressed down by a ponderous lid, whose elastic
hin^e will not allow its elevation without considerable force ;
and should by any possibility a portion of the pollen escape
through the opening in front, rarely effectually closed by the
fringe, it would drop, not upon the stigmatic surface, but upon
the lip, opposite to it.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 87

" An insect flying to the flower and intent on its sweets,
would alight on the lip, and creeping in would strike its head
and back first against the protruding anther-lid, only pressing it
down more tightly, effecting nothing, and then against the stig-
matic surface. The passage into the flower is narrow, allowing
no room for anything but a very small insect to turn round in,
so that no sooner does the insect withdraw itself backward,
than the top of the back and of the head, striking, as it almost
infallibly must, against the front of the anther-lid (which at
its upper portion projects forward somewhat in order the more
readily to catch the passing head), raises it more and more with
its continued withdrawal, rolling the outer and under surface of
the lid against the upper and front portion of the head of the
insect till it has passed, when the lid snaps back to its original
position, leaving the pollen-masses adhering to the upper por-
tion of the front of the insect's head ; or if only a portion of
the pollen be removed, the lid being closed again is ready for
the services of the next visitor. The insect flies to another
flower, and striking with the top of the head plump against the
stigmatic surface, leaves the pollen glued to it.

" Besides the prominence of the front of the anther-lid, the
fringe upon the under side of the lid in front is directed slightly
outward, and may assist by becoming entangled or interlocked
in the hairs of the retreating insect and more surely effect the
raising of the lid. The edges of the column on either side of the
stigmatic surface project outward a little, making a shallow
channel for the better guidance of the insect toward it ; and it
does not seem too fanciful to suppose that the heavy beard
upon the lip, through which the insect must pass with difficulty,
may cause it to walk through it as it were on tip-toe, in order
to raise its abdomen high above the obstacle, and therefore to
strike more surely the stigmatic surface on entering and the
anther-lid on retiring. There is besides another curious fact :
on raising the lid it will be seen that is does not open alto-

88 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

gether as we should expect it, but is thrust forward a little, ap-
parently through some elasticity of the hinge, so that the pollen-
masses, when the lid is partially open, are found to reach a
position nearly as far forward as the projecting front of the lid
did when closed, although on the removal of the pressure it
will revert to its original position ; this again seems to lend its
aid in the same direction.

" Out of nine flowers examined, seven had both pollen-masses
and stigmatic surface intact ; the other two had each their stig-
matic surface smeared with pollen, and the pollen-masses in one
wholly, and in the other partially, removed. The plant very
generally has but a single flower, so that by what has been
stated it will be seen that with rare exceptions no plant is ever
fertilized by its own pollen. It is stated by Prof. Gray in his
Manual of Botany, that the Arethuseas all have the fertile anther
like a lid over the column, and that this is, after a time, decidu-
ous. It may be questioned on this account whether it might
not here prove to be directly capable of self-fertilization ; but
in one plant examined in which the pollen-masses had been
removed, the stigmatic surface smeared with pollen and the
petals of the flower quite withered, the lid still remained and
no loss of elasticity in the hinge was noticed, so that the anther
probably does not fall off till a period subsequent to the fertili-
zation of the plant. In another plant, not yet showing any
signs of decay, where the pollen had been partially removed,
that which remained was much discolored, and even seemed to
show signs of decay, as if but a temporary exposure to the at-
mosphere were injurious to it.

" This Orchid agrees more nearly with Dendrobium chrysan-
thum than with any other mentioned by Darwin, but differs
peculiarly from that in altogether wanting a rostellum, a sec-
ond of the characteristic features shared by most Orchids
which is wanting in this plant, the pollinia (having no caudicle
and disc) being the first."

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

89

The Large Coral-root, C. multiflora, shows itself in dry
woods about this time, in Vermont, dull pink, purple and
yellow shading into each other on its scape and blossoms,
and a decided knob borne on the ovary answering to a spur.
This species is found in Washington Territory and California,
as well as in the Northern States and Canada, and it was found
in one locality at an elevation of 7,000 feet
by the explorers of the 40th Parallel, their
botanical report describing it as flowering in
July, and having " sepals and petals strongly
veined." Our New England woods bring
forth at the same time another parasitic
plant, puzzlingly like a Coral-root to the
young collector, and this, known as Epiphe-
gus or Beech-drops, is a stiff, unhappy look-
ing thing, which, if it really masquerades as
an Orchid, quite overdoes the business by
branching into a low shrub and blooming
more profusely than Multiflora even.

Having spoken rather disparagingly of the
Coral-roots, I scarcely know how to de-
scribe or to make my finest pointed pencil
flatter the One-leaved Adder's Mouth, Mu
crostylis monophyllos, or the other species,
coming later in July, M. ophioglossoides ; di- fig.26.— adders' Mouths.

Microstylis ophioglossoi-

mmutive bulbous herbs that stagger under des.

,,. . ,.,» ., linn • 1 • Microstylis monophyllos.

their scientific titles. Wholly attired in
green, and odorless, they are well concealed in their swamps
and wet forests, but to the tiny gnats and flies that must fer-
tilize them they are fully as important as the gigantic Lady's
Slipper that may overshadow them is to its bee. Here, in
each flower, are spreading sepals and petals ; a long, round
column with an erect anther; 4 waxy pollen-masses in one
row. The coat of arms, though small, is legitimately- dis-

gO THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

played, one must allow. The Adder's-mouth Microstylis
carries its leaf near the middle of the stem, and is by this
feature most quickly distinguished from the other species
which has its leaf sheathing the base.

It was observed by a naturalist of Ottawa, Canada, that in
1882, M. ophioglossoides was very common in that region, while
few specimens of M. monophyllos could be found. In 1883, tne
reverse was the case : M. mo?wphyllos was abundant, and only
one or two plants of the other species noted. This habit of
appearing and disappearing without any apparent reason is
another charm of the Orchis family.*

Our rarest Orchid, if we reject the doubtful. Pogonia affinis, is
the Crane-fly Orchis, Tipularia discolor, which straggles across
the sandy woods of Massachusetts into Southern Vermont, and
probably into New Hampshire, and is scarce west and south as
well as in New England. The genus, as given in Gray, follows
Calypso (one would say that fancy needed to call a good many
intermediate forms back to life). In Tipularia the very long
spur is noticeable ; the column, as is not the case in Calypso, is
narrow and wingless ; the lid-like anther is terminal and not " be-
low the apex," and the " 2 waxy pollen-masses, each 2 parted "
are " connected by a linear stalk " instead of directly to the
gland of the stigma. The scape, sheathed at the base, rises like
that of the Aplectrum from one of several connected bulbs,
and as with Calypso and Aplectrum, a distinct leaf is put forth
in autumn. The flowers of T. discolor (" distinguished by the
blunt tip of its lip from a recently discovered Himalayan
species "), scattered down the long, angular scape, are brown-
ish-purple, but attract less attention than the green column,
which is very much exposed. The leaf is reddish-purple while
getting its growth, and is smoother in texture and less strongly
veined than that of A. hyemale, but approaches it in size.

* The same irregularity has been noticed in the case of H. ciliaris and P. verti-
rillala.

Fig. 27.— Crane-fly Orchis. (Tipularia discolor.)

Also front view of flower, side view of column and lip,

and bulbs with offset.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 93

Having living specimens of these three Orchids in my garden,
this fall (1883), I have taken pains to note the dates when
their leaves appeared : Calypso, Sept. 2d ; Aplectrum, Sept.
9th ; Tipularia, Sept. 14th. As T. discolor blossoms late in
July, it has, one might say, but little rest from toil, and some-
how the wriggling spur and spreading sepals and petals convey
the idea that the plant really has a good deal of business* on
hand. My drawing was made, I should add, from a fine and
large specimen.

A meadow in midsummer presents the same temptation to a
pedestrian that an untracked sheet of ice does to a school-boy.
There is a great satisfaction in making the first break in the
soft, undulating expanse that resists the knees so feebly ; and
your path is sure to be a winding one, for on this side and that,
lilies, rues and spiraeas beckon, and as their beauty will not avail
them when the scythe is whetted, why should you not antici-
pate it? If the ground is at all damp and the meadow skirts
some woods, notices to trespassers will fail to daunt the
stubborn man who is after Fringed Orchises and suspects that
some are secreted among the bushy knolls and hummocks.

Habenaria fimbriata (O. grandiflorci), the Large Purple or
Tattered-fringe Orchis, less common than the smaller and
later species, H. psycodes, is claimed for June by Rhode Island ;
while dates from Burlington, Vt., Claremont, N. H., and Mt.
Desert, Me., would seem to indicate July as its proper period
northward. I have seen leaves as broad as a man's hand,
and I think it has as opulent and self-assured an air as any
of our Orchids. Its loose, feathery spike, which saves it
from any imputation of coarseness, always suggests to me a
flock of birds struggling to get foot-hold on the same branch.
A curious specimen was reported to the American Naturalist,
not long ago by Mr. W. W. Denslow, of Massachusetts, in
which the flowers were all abnormally developed and destitute
•of both fringes and spurs, and the herbarium of Columbia Col-

94

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

lege contains a singular form, supposed to be intermediate
between this and the Smaller Purple Fringed-Orchis, which
has the middle division of the lip merely toothed like the
petals. Gray describes the spike or raceme of H. jimbriata, as
" oblong," that of H. psycodes as " cylindrical ; " the petals of
the former as " denticulate (or toothed) above," the petals of
the latter as " toothed down the sides."

Thoreau, who found both these Fringed Orchises in Northern
Maine, grumbled loudly because they were so abundant where
only moose and moose-hunters could see them, and so rare in
Concord. Meehan says of H. fimbriata, that it is most com-
mon on hilly ground (another point of difference between it
and the other species), that it ranges from New England to
Michigan and Southern Ohio, and that England produces
species " but little different in appearance," some of them
known in old literature as Dead Men's Fingers, Dead Men's
Thumbs, and Long Purples (O. morio); two of these names
occurring in Hamlet in the passage where the queen describes
the manner of Ophelia's death.

" In the stem growth," the same writer says, " there has
been a gradual elongation, but we see that it takes but three
leaves to make a full circle round the stem. We do not notice
indications of the spiral growth which takes these leaves round
the stem, but it is there. It is the more sudden twisting and
arresting of the elongating growth that make the set of 3 sepals
and 3 petals. These lengthenings and twistings do not go on
with regular intensity, but as in waves, sometimes fast and
sometimes slow. If we watch the growth of the flower we
shall find that it first makes a slow elongating growth, and that
the twisting comes on suddenly, usually taking but a few hours
to make a half turn."

" The two side divisions of the lip," says Gray, " aid in
hindering approach " from those directions, " while the middle
division offers a convenient landing-place in front. The con_

Fig. 28.— Large Purple Fringed-Orchis.
Habenaria fimbriata.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. gy

tracted base of the lip is grooved, or with incurved margins,
the trough leading as a sure guide to the narrow orifice of the
nectary. The two anther-cells are widely separated, but little
divergent ; their lower ends projecting strongly forward, bring
the naked discs just into line with the orifice of the nectary.
The pointed tip of a pencil brought to the orifice neatly
catches the sticky discs and brings away the pollen-masses ;
when the movement, which is effected within a quarter or a
third of a minute, converges them just enough to make them
hit the broad stigma (which lies rather high) upon the re-appli-
cation of the pencil. The ' drum-like pedicel ' (seen in H.
Hookeri), is present in this species also, but reduced to a mini-
mum ; the movement which takes place appears to result
wholly from its change of form, the portion towards the anther
contracting most, and to be one of depression solely."

Habenaria tridentata, Barton's Three-toothed Orchis, which
has already been mentioned as coming close to the True
Orchises, is the Orchis tridentata of Muhlenberg and the
Gymnadenia tridentata of Lindley, and through July and
August at the North, and sometimes as late as August in
Eastern Massachusetts, presents its single leaf and its few
greenish-white flowers.* This Habenaria resembles H. hyper-
borca in that the anther-cells open "before the flower bud,"
as Gray says, " is fully grown, or at least four or five days
before the flower opens, and as the flowers at this time are
horizontal and somewhat reclining, the packets of pollen
which spontaneously detach themselves from the pollen-mass
may fall out. In every case of flowers opening naturally, the
anther-cells were found widely gaping, yet so far as we can see
the pollen-masses cannot of themselves fall upon or reach the
stigmatic surface." There are, however, in this Habenaria,
" three club-shaped projections or processes, which are nearly

* I have drawn them a little too large, in my illustration (Fig. 20).
7

98

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

alike, one outside each anther-cell, and one between them,
which rise as high as the anther-cells," and may be sterile
stamens. Their surfaces are viscid and the spontaneously
detached grains of pollen stick fast to them, and " send down
pollen-tubes freely into their substance, so that they appear to
act as stigmas, although the normal stigma is found in its
proper place and of ordinary appearance underneath the
discs." This real stigma, strangely enough, is
not as viscid as the surfaces of the processes,
but "the large discs are in perfect condition ;
the stems of the pollen-masses are promptly
depressed when removed."

Habenaria viresce7is, the Greenish Orchis,
agrees with the foregoing species in date, in
a preference for wet (but more open) ground,
and a little in the character of its flowers as
it follows in natural order. H. tridentatar
according to Chapman, is found as far south
f as Mississippi ; H. virescens occurs in Flor-
ida, and the latter has been as plentifully
endowed with titles as any royal personage ;
O. flava, O. bidentata, H. Jia'biola, and P.
flava, being a few of the names given it by
different writers. " The structure of the disc-
bearing portion of the column," says Gray,
" answers, perhaps, to what is expressed by
Lindley's vague character of Gymnadenia, ' rostcllo complicato]
and is quite different from that which prevails in the more
genuine species of Platanthera. Viewed from the front (on
removing the lip), each disc is found to line an oblong cavity
or deep groove : viewed vertically from above, this appears as
a ring with the front edge cut away or as something more
than a semicircle lined by the thin broad disc. A narrow,
nose-shaped protuberance on the lip projects upward and back-

Fig. 29.— Greenish

Orchis.
Habenaria virescens.

Fig. 30.— Small Purple Fringed-Orchis. (Habenaria psycodes.)
Large Round-leaved Orchis. (Habenaria orbiculata.)

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. I0I

ward so as almost to touch the column between the two discs
(or rather between the two cups or grooves that contain them)
and therefore lying over and dividing the orifice of the spur.
The anther-cells are parallel but a little apart, and lie almost in
line with the lip, but with their front ends depressed so that the
discs are a little lower than the base of the protuberance.
These discs and this protuberance are so correlated in shape
and position that the proboscis of an insect fitted to suck
nectar, inserted obliquely from above, as it must be, can-
not keep the middle line at the entrance, but will take
right or left of the protuberance, and so slide into the
disc-bearing groove of that side. On directing a delicate
bristle vertically from above into the spur, taking either side
of the protuberance, the bristle will either enter the discal
groove from above as a thread enters the eye of a needle, or,
if presented more obliquely from the front, will slide into the
groove when, as it enters the spur, it is raised, as it must be, to
a more vertical position, the disc clasps the bristle and is with-
drawn with it along with the attached pollinium. It is evident
that in this species, self-fertilization cannot occur, that only one
pollinium will be likely to be withdrawn at one visit of an insect,
and that this will doubtless be conveyed to another flower."

A correspondent tells me that he is not familiar enough with
the Orchis family to know the difference between H. viresceHs
and H. viridis, but if he bears in mind the fact that H. virescens
carries a spur, and H. viridis a bag, he need not have to refer
to the botany. Or, to state it still more simply, the one hav-
ing the longer name has the longer nectary of the two.

If there is a more enticing place than a boulder-strewn hill-
side pasture, I have yet to find it : the copses, the beds of
brake and fern, the grassy basins with their refreshing springs,
give me no excuse for hastening through, even on a July after-
noon ; but by climbing higher, into the hemlock woods, I hope
to be repaid by seeing the Great Round-leaved Orchis, H. orbi-

I02 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

cidata, the " Heal-all " of Pennsylvania. Its glossy silver-lined
leaves, often nine inches across, lie, like those of H. Hookeri
(the Small Round-leaved Orchis), close to the needle-strewn
ground, and the waspish green and white flowers are lifted from
one to two feet above then. " Many light-colored flowers,"
writes Miiller, " which often grow in shady places, are inconspic-
uous by day but conspicuous by night (e. g. Platanthera).
These are chiefly visited by crepuscular Lepidoptera,* but in-
sects are excluded not so much by the color as by the situation

of the honey at the base of long, nar-
row tubes."

The arrangements for fertilization
are substantially the same as those of
H. Hookeri. " The way," says Gray,
" in which the anterior (lower) por-

Fig. 31.— Head of Moth, Sphinx
dr up if erarum, with attached and de- tioil of the anther-Cells with the Com-
pressed pollen-masses of Habenaria , . . , . , .

orbicuiata. bined arms of the stigma taper and

Front view of flower of Horbi. project forward, so as to raise the

culata, showing anther-cells and ex- * J

posed viscid discs. ^iscs on a sort 0f beak, a little in

Disc and part of pedicel. (All

from Gray's Botanical Text Book.) advance of the orifice of the nec-
tary, is well exhibited in Hooker's figure of this species (H
macrophylld) in the Flora Bor. Amer., but the discs do not look
outwardly in the manner there represented. These, being
affixed to the stalk of the pollen-mass laterally, by that inter-
mediate body called the " drum-like pedicel " (here developed
perhaps even more than in H. Hookeri) really look forward and
inward — in fact are so placed that they will be sure to stick
fast, one to each side of the head of a humble bee or of a large
moth that thrusts its proboscis down into the spur so as to
reach the nectar. As the divergent bases of the anther-cells
are so separated by the broad stigma that the viscid discs
stand nearly a quarter of an inch apart and the full-grown spur
is from one inch to an inch and a half long, it is evident that
* Butterflies, moths, etc., that fly after sunset.

Fig. 32.— Ladies' Tresses.
Spiranthes Romanzoviana.
Grassy Spiranthes. (S. graminea, Var. Walteri.)

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. I05

fertilization is effected by the agency of large Lepidoptera and
Hymenoptera. The movements of rotation and depression are
pretty slow but distinct."

This species ranges Northwestward to Lake Superior, and fol-
lows the Alleghanies to Virginia, if not still farther south. I
have placed it, in the illustration, in unnatural combination
with H. psycodes that the coarseness of the one may be com-
pared with the deKcacy of the other.

Three species of Spiranthes link July with August. 5. Roman-
zoviana bears, like 5. latifolia, its flowers in three ranks and its
leaves at the base of the stem. Sepals and petals unite in a
close hood over the lip, the flowers have the odor of violets,
and there is in general a resemblance to the -later 5. ccrnua.
A physician living in North-eastern Vermont writes me that he
has jumped from his carriage many a time, supposing he had at
last found this Spiranthes ; only to renew again his acquaint-
ance with .S". ccrnua.

This pretty flower has not been credited to New England by
the botanies ; but inhabits many of the cold upland bogs of our
three northern States. Its range, as given in the Report of the
Geological Exploration of the 40th Parallel, is remarkable.
" Maine and Canada to Lake Superior, the Saskatchewan and
Washington Territory ; northward to Unalaska and southward
to California and Colorado. East Humboldt Mts., 6,000 to
8,000 feet, July-Sept." It is a singular fact that this Orchid is
confined, in Europe, to a few bogs in County Cork, Ireland, and
Prof. Gray would have it that " these are merely the last or
among the last lingering stations of a species once common to
both continents." I accept this explanation more easily but
not more graciously than I do that given in " Colin Clout's
Calendar^ in the chapter entitled, ll Some American Colonists,"
where Grant Allen affirms his belief that the seeds were carried
across the ocean by chance, at some remote period. Its origin
may be uncertain but not so its end ; for the last named writer

106 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

mournfully says : " the ardor of modern botanists is fast putting
an end to its brief career," and then adds, " this case presents
some features of peculiar interest, because the Irish specimens
would seem to have been settled in the country for a very long
period, sufficient to have set up an incipient tendency toward
the evolution of a new species ; for they had so far varied be-
fore their first discovery by botanists that Lindley considered
them to be distinct from their American allies, and even Dr.
Bentham originally so classed them, though he now admits the
essential identity of both kinds."

Spiranthes graminea, variety Waltcri, carries one
straight rank of more open flowers and gets its ad-
jective, " grassy," from the localities where it grows.
A more lowland species than the last, it appears to
have also a more southward range and to be most
common in the meadows along the coast.

Spiranthes gracilis, the Slender Spiranthes, ar-
ranging its tiny flowers like 5. graminea, bears its
leaves clustered at the base of the stem, but from
their small size and their habit of withering when
the plant flowers they count for very little. This
F1G.33-F00TOF Species ordinarily has clustered roots, but Dr. N.

Spiranthes Ro- x j

manzoviana. L. Britton, of Columbia College, has found it in
Ulster Co., New York, with a single tuber. Nature must be
fond of the Slender Spiranthes, or she would not permit it to
flourish in comparatively dry soil and to enjoy a four months'
lease of life. One need not be surprised to see it in July or to
gather it with S. cernua in October.

In the structure of 5. gracilis (and of vS. cermia as well) we
have a more more complex arrangement than one would dream
existed in flowers so minute and unpretending; as is shown in
Darwin's account of the British 5. autumnalis. The stigma
occupies about the same place that it does in a Habenaria.
There is also a rostellum, but this is curiously different from

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

°7

the cup-shaped one of Orchis spectabilis, and may be described
as a thin, tapering beak or projection, a shelf as it were, over
the stigma ; its tip appearing like a dark dot as you look into
the flower. On this shelf lie the two pollen-masses, one in
each cell, composed of " thin and tender plates of granular pol-
len united by elastic threads" (these plates so brittle that in 5.
Romanzoviana I have, on
drawing out the pollen-
masses, left much of the
pollen behind). " In the
middle of the rostellum/'
to quote from Darwin's ac-
count of the kindred British
species 5. aiitinnnalis, " a
narrow, brown object (fig.
34, C) may be seen, bor-
dered and covered by trans- *- Threads of the p°llen- r. Rosteiium.

masses. s. Stigma.

parent membrane. This «• Nectar receptacle.

, i • , T .f1 11 ,1 A. Flower with the two lower sepals alone re-

brown object I will call the moved The labellum has its lip fringed>

boat -formed disc
boat, standing vertically up
on its stern, is filled with
thick, milky, extremely ad-
hesive fluid, which, when
exposed to the air, turns
brown, and in about one
minute sets quite hard. An object is well glued to the boat
in four or five seconds, and when the cement is dry the attach-
ment is wonderfully strong.

" The face of the rostellum next the stigma is slightly fur-
rowed in a longitudinal line over the middle of the boat, and is
endowed with a remarkable kind of irritability ; for if the fur-
row be touched very gently with a needle, or if a bristle be laid
along the furrow, it instantly splits along its whole length, and

Fig. 34.— Spiranthes autumnalis, or Ladies'

Tresses. (From Dariuin.)
a. Anther. cl. Margin of clinan-

/. Pollen- grains. drum.

T V» j c B. Mature flower with all the sepals and petals re-
moved. The position of the labellum (which
has moved from the rostellum) and of the up-
per sepals is shown by the dotted lines.

C. Front view of stigma and of the rostellum with
its embedded central disc.

D. Front view of stigma and rostellum after the
disc has been removed.

E. Viscid disc removed and greatly magnified, view-
ed posteriorily, and with the attached elastic
threads of the pollen-masses; the pollen-grains
have been removed from the threads.

I08 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

a little milky adhesive fluid exudes. The fissure runs up the
whole length of the rostellum from the stigma beneath to the
summit : at the summit, the fissure bifurcates, runs down the
back of the rostellum on each side and round the stern of the
boat-formed disc. Hence after this splitting action the boat-
formed disc lies quite free, but imbedded in a fork in the ros-
tellum. When a bristle is laid for two or three seconds in the
furrow of the rostellum, and the membrane has consequently-
become fissured, the viscid matter within the boat-formed disc,
which lies close to the surface, and indeed slightly exudes, is
almost sure to glue the disc longitudinally to the bristle, and
both are withdrawn together, and the two sides of the rostel-
lum are left sticking up like a fork. This is the common con-
dition of the flowers after they had been open a day or two
and have been visited by insects. The fork soon withers.

" Long before the flower expands, the anther-cells, which are
pressed against the back of the rostellum, open in their upper
part so that the included pollen-masses come into contact with
the back of the disc. The projecting ends of the threads unit-
ing the leaves of pollen (which in Ophrys become true stalks
or caudicles), then became firmly attached to rather above the
middle part of the back of the disc. The anther-cells after-
ward open lower down, and their membranous walls contract
and become brown; so that by the time the flower is fully ex-
panded, the pollen-masses lie almost naked, their bases (thick
ends) resting in a little cup formed by the withered anther-cell
and protected on each side by a membrane which extends
from the edges of the stigma to the filament (stalk) of the
anther," and forms another cup or " clinandrum." These
membranous sides of the clinandrum are thought to be the
rudiments of the two anthers which are seen in a developed
state in Cypripedium, only. " These rudiments aid their
brother anther."

" The lip is channelled down the middle ; the nectar is col-

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

IO9

lected in a smaller receptacle in the lower part of the lip," and
on either side of the orifice there is " a globular process or
swelling which secretes nectar." When the flower first opens
the receptacle contains nectar, and at this period the front of
the rostellum lies close to the channelled lip, consequently a
passage is left, but so narrow that only a fine bristle can be
passed down it, and a bee could not pass down its proboscis
without touching the furrow of the rostellum. " At this
period, the stigma is only slightly viscid." The pollen-masses
could now be easily removed, but the passage is so narrow " that
the pollen-masses attached to a proboscis cannot possibly be
forced in so as to reach the stigma ; they would either be up-
turned or broken off ; but after a day or two the column moves
a little farther from the lip, and a wider passage is left." Bees,
as he observed, " always alighted at the bottom of a spike and
crawling spirally up it, sucked one flower after another, the
most convenient method ; on the same principle that a wood-
pecker climbs up a tree in search of insects." If a bee
alighted on the top of a spike, " she would certainly extract the
pollen-masses from the uppermost, last opened flowers ; but
when visiting the next succeeding flower, of which the column
in all probability would not as yet have moved from the lip
(for this is very slowly effected), the pollen-masses would be
brushed off her proboscis and wasted.

" But nature suffers no such waste. The bee goes first to the
lowest flower, but effects nothing on the first spike till she
reaches the upper flowers, and then she withdraws the pollen-
masses. She soon flies to another plant, and alighting on the
lowest and oldest flower," which now has a wide passage, " the
pollen-masses will strike the protuberant stigma. If this
stigma has already been fully fertilized, little or no pollen will be
left on its dried surface ; but on the next succeeding flower, of
which the stigma is adhesive, large sheets of pollen will be left.
Then, as soon as the bee arrives near the summit of the spike,

IIO THE ORCHIDS OF NEW EXGLAND.

she will withdraw fresh pollen-masses, will fly to the lower
flowers of another plant, and thus fertilize them ; as she adds
to her store of honey, she perpetuates the race of our autumnal
Spiranthes which will yield honey to future generations of
bees."

Habenaria lacera, the Greenish or Ragged-fringed Orchis, is
a common species at this period in open or partly shaded, wet
places ; and I have known it to live on contentedly when its
locality had been drained and tunnelled by the gas and water
pipes of an encroaching town. Sweet, in his British Flower
Garden, calls it the Torn-flowered Habenaria, and calls atten-
tion to "its elegantly jagged appearance." "It must," says
Gray, " be very attractive to some insects, the pollen-masses
are so generally removed from oldish flowers and the stigma
fertilized. The nectary can be approached only from the front,
the sides being guarded by a broad and thick shield on each side
— the arms of the stigma much developed — above supporting
the anther, while its inner and concave face bears the remarka-
bly long and narrow viscid discs. These guards or arms of the
stigma project forward like beaks ; the viscid discs are " as
long as the stalks of the pollen-masses, are directly attached to
them near the middle, and nearly face each other. When de-
tached, a movement of depression takes place by which the
pollen-mass is brought down so as to be nearly parallel to the
disc and close to it — just in proper position to reach a stigma.

Dwarf the flowers of //. fimbriata, increase their number,
deepen their color, shorten their fringes, and the Small Pur-
ple Fringed-Orchis, H. psycodes, stands before you : a variety,
some think, of the former species. It may appear in a grassy
ditch by a roadside ; perhaps, holding its soft plume above the
tangled brakes, sedges and poison ivy in your nearest meadow ;
always refined wherever it grows. As with H. lacera and H.
fimbriata, says Gray, " a development of the sides of the col-
umn as a kind of guard, protects the discs, preventing all ready

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. ni

access to the nectary except from the front. A short bristle,
slid along the base of the lip and into the nectary for some
distance, will not touch the viscid discs, they lying a little too
far back ; but on pushing it down deep into the long and
curving spur (only the lower half or quarter of which is filled
with nectar) it has to be bowed back somewhat, when it
catches the disc ; so that before an insect can have drained the
nectary, the pollen-masses will be affixed to the base or upper
part of its proboscis, or to the forehead of a smaller insect.
When extricated, the movement of depression is prompt —
within a few seconds — and on re-application, the pollen is
accurately brought into contact with the stigma. The anther-
cells are widely separated but little divergent, their tapering
bases (supported as in H. lacera), project strongly, the discs
looking forward and downward. In both H. psycodes and H.
lacera the nectar appears to be much more plentiful in the
spurs of older flowers than of freshly opened ones, most
so indeed in blossoms which had their pollen removed and
their stigma fertilized several days before, and which were
becoming effete. In such flowers the spur was often half full
in the present species, and sometimes almost full in H. lacera.
But although little had dripped down to the bottom of the
spur in freshly opened blossoms, the walls were moistened with
nectar throughout its length."

The botanist quoted when C. spectabile was spoken of, gives
in the same paper some observations made at different times
during the month of August. " A Sesia* began to suck nectar
(from a plant of H. psycodes), poised on the wing. It visited
more than a dozen flowers, proceeding spirally up the spike,
and I found about thirty pollinia attached to its proboscis
near the base. They were all in a space of less than a tenth
of an inch in length and much crowded. Those nearest the
tip of the proboscis had lost much of their pollen by contact

* S. Thysbe, Fabr.

II2 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

with many stigmas." At another time, " a Sesia * sucked
nectar from every open flower on one spike : when caught, it
had about twenty pollinia attached to it ; both moths had pro-
boscides so encumbered with the pollinia that it was impossible
for them to be coiled up between the palpi. The shortness of
the time occupied in the depression of pollinia in this species
and the time that the insects remained at one plant would
seem to indicate that the upper flowers on the spike, at least,
were fertilized by pollen from the same plant. I have fre-
quently seen the orthopterous insect Phancroptera curvicaiida,
Serv., feeding upon the flowers of this Orchid, but could not
find that they ever effected its fertilization, although pollinia
were several times found attached to their feet."

The author once examined four spikes of H. psycodcs to see
what their attendant insects had accomplished. The plants
grew near together in a damp hollow by a shady roadside.
Omitting 45 that had set their seed, there were in all 182
open flowers (one spike bore 64 blossoms, two of them double,
and the plant was twenty-three inches high), and of this
number, 69, mostly on the upper parts of the spikes, had had
no pollen removed ; 49 had lost both pollen-masses ; 61 had
lost one apiece, 34 removed from the right hand, 27 from
the left. In the case of one spike where but 8 flowers had lost
both pollen-masses and 19 had lost but one, only 5 had been
taken from the left hand. I found one pollinium sticking by
its disc to a stigma, and one I removed myself fell, striking
the stigma, not with its heavy end as one would suppose, but
with its disc. I questioned whether the pollinia might not be
occasionally shaken out of their cells by hard winds, but this
was improbable ; and in Miiller's work I have since found an
explanation. Speaking of humble-bees caught with pollen-
masses on them, he says, " we frequently observed . . .
that when the pollen-masses bent forward the bee was able

S. diffinis, BoisJ.

THE ORCHIDS OF NE W ENGLAND. \ \ 3

to tear them off with its mandibles. Some bees which we
caught with pollinia on their heads had them attached to their
fore-legs when examined shortly afterward. These frequently
successful efforts on the part of the bees to free themselves
from the pollinia explain why we often find whole pollinia or
pairs of pollinia attached to the flowers, generally in the neigh-
borhood of the stigma."

These flowers I have just described had a rank smell, and I
do not remember that I ever found a really fragrant specimen
of this Fringed-Orchis, though it is the only Habenaria called
fragrant by Gray.

In some parts of Vermont, H. psy codes bears the picturesque
name of " Flaming Orchis," which ought rather to be trans-
ferred to the Yellow Fringed-Orchis, H. ciliaris, fit symbol of
the wealth and glow of August ; resplendent in orange and
gold, not only in sepals and petals but even in spurs and
ovaries, and admitting but one rival, the cardinal flower, burn-
ing its torch well into September in Northern New England.
In Connecticut and Rhode Island, where it is local but abun-
dant, it is not unfrequently met with in July. Near Plymouth,
Massachusetts, as I am informed, there is a bog in which it is
" almost a weed," but one must go west or south to get it by
the wholesale. There are places near New York, for instance,
where it grows by the acre. If I had my own way, it should
never grow in bogs among coarse pitcher plants; it needs a
richer background ; but in ferny meadows bordering a sandy
brook, as it does in a jealously guarded spot I know of in
Guilford, Conn. ; and if I ever write a romance of Indian life,
my dusky heroine, Birch Tree or Trembling Fawn, shall meet
her lover with a wreath of this Orchis on her head.

The White Fringed-Orchis, H. blephariglottis, known as the
Feather-leaved Orchis in some localities on Cape Cod, grows
with H. ciliaris, and as Gray well says, " commonly takes its
place northward." This species does not grow as high, has

ii4

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

smaller flowers less conspicuously notched and fringed, while
there is a variety, holopetala, that has these adornments re-
duced to a minimum. H. blepliariglottis closely resembles its
gayer sister in appearance and structure, and by reason of its
purity is quite as fascinating. Gray considers these species to
be " chiefly remarkable for having their viscid discs projecting
much more even than in H. orbicalata,
the anterior part of the anther-cell and
the supporting arm of the stigma united
tapering and lengthened to such a
degree that the viscid discs are as if
raised on a pedicel, projecting consider-
ably beyond the rest of the column.
pH The anther-cells are nearly horizontal,
greatly divergent, but inclined somewhat
inward at the ends ; so that the discs are
presented forward and slightly inward,
at least in H. blepliariglottis, or in H.
ciliaris more directly forward. Evi-
dently these projecting discs are to be
stuck to the head of some nectar-suck-
ing insect. The stigma, which is rather
small, is between the lateral arms, in the
same horizontal line with the discs : the
discs are small but quite sticky and di-
rectly affixed to the extremity of a stalk
which in just proportion to the forward
elongation of the anther-cell, etc., is re-
markably long and slender, twice or thrice the length of the
pollen-mass it bears. Upon removal, a slight bending or
turning of the slender stalk brings the pollen-mass into posi-
tion for reaching the stigma. The discs in ordinary flowers of
H. ciliaris, are about a line and a half apart (the English line
is the twelfth part of an inch), the slender spur an inch long,

Fig. 35. — Yellow Fringed-

Orchis.

Habenaria ciliaris.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. n$

from which somewhat of the structure and size of the insect
adapted to the work in hand may be estimated."

These two Habenarias have curious white ear-shaped append-
ages on the outside of the anther, small in size but so strongly
contrasted in H. ciliaris with the yellow of the anther as to be
conspicuous ; and if the reader has a good herbarium to turn
to, he will probably notice that these little auricles are visible
without a glass, in both species, and have kept their color after
the other parts have turned brown. I can find no printed allu-
sion to them ; even Gray's Manual, which carefully mentions the
strange club-shaped processes in H. tridentata, being silent on
this point. Professor Gray writes me that he has noticed these
" crests," as he calls them, but does not think they correspond
to the fertile stamens in Cypripedium. Is not the answer to
this pretty riddle hidden away somewhere in the following
passage from Darwin?

" Although the two anthers az and a2 of the inner whorl
(see Fig. 2) are not fully and normally developed in any Orchid,
excepting Cypripedium, their rudiments are generally present
and are often utilized ; for they often form the membranous
sides of the cup-like clinandrum on the summit of the column.
These rudiments thus aid their fertile brother anther. In the
young flower-bud of Malaxis paludosa the close resemblance be-
tween the two membranes of the clinandrum and the fertile
anther in shape and texture was most striking ; it was impos-
sible to doubt that in these two membranes we had two rudi-
mentary anthers. In Liparis pendula and some other species,
these two rudimentary anthers form not only the clinandrum,
but likewise wings, which project on each side of the entrance
into the stigmatic cavity, and serve as guides for the insertion
of the pollen masses. . . .

" In nearly all the members of the Ophreae and Neotteae two
small papillae, or auricles as they have often been called, stand
in exactly the position which the anthers ax and a2 would have

16

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

occupied had they been developed. Not only do they stand
in this position but the column in some cases . . . has on
each side a prominent ridge, running from them to the bases
or mid-ribs of the two upper petals ; that is, in the proper
position of the filaments of these two stamens. It is impossi-
ble to doubt that the two membranes of the clinandrum in
Malaxis are formed by these two anthers in a rudimentary and
modified condition. Now, from the perfect clinandrum of

Malaxis, through that of
Spiranthes, Goodyera, Epi-
pactis latifolia, and E. pa-
lustris, to the minute and
£ slightly flattened auricles
S^ in the genus Orchis, a
perfect gradation can be
traced. Hence I conclude
that these auricles are
doubly rudimentary ; that
is they are rudiments of
the membranous sides of
the clinandrum, these membranes themselves being rudiments
of the two anthers so often referred to. . . . Such vessels
may quite disappear. . . . The two upper anthers of the
inner whorl are fertile in Cypripedium, and in other cases are
generally represented either by membranous expansions or by
minute auricles. . . . These auricles, however, are some-
times quite absent, as in some species of Ophrys." *

Summer, in her flight, invariably forgets to drop one flower
from her cornucopia at the proper time ; at least it seems so,
when we behold at this late day, in damp woods, a little plant
that brings the Pogonias to mind. It is the Nodding or Pendent
Pogonia (P. pcndald), and has still another name, Triplwra pen-
dula, none as musical as the rustic one, Three Birds. This Po-

FlG. 36.

1. Front view of flower of Yellow Fringed-Orchis.

2. Side view (natural position).

3. The anther with its auricle.

4. A pollinium.

5. Flower of Green Fringed-Orchis. {From Sweet.)

* See, also, Sachs' Text Book of Botany, 1872, p. 603.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

17

gonia has a tuberous root ; the delicate blossoms, one or more
in number (3-7 according to Chapman), vary in color from pale
rose to pure white and have a slight odor. The lip is prettily-
cleft or lobed, and has in place of a crest, three tiny green lines,
which I am inclined to suspect secrete nectar. " A comparison
between the different Pogonias," says Meehan, " establishes
confidence in the doctrine that all the parts of a flower are but
modifications of simple leaves — in P. pendida, the vegetative
force seems feeble, and spends itself in often-repeated attempts ;
hence small leaves and insignificant flowers are scattered all
along the stem, but in P. verticillata the force exercised is
evidently greater, not only in amount but also in degree, and its
action is more concentrated. The stem, therefore, instead of
slowly elongating and sending out a leaf and a flower here and
there, rapidly draws in its spiral coils, thus producing only a
whorl of leaves, and annihilating all tendency to flower in the
axils, after which it makes another growth and then another
sudden arrest and coil, resulting in a large single flower. In P.
opJiioglossoides the acting force was intermediate in intensity.
Having coiled up the primordial leaves to form the flower stem,
the force was not powerful enough to arrest the formation of
the leaves suddenly, and it therefore still left them somewhat
scattered. The lowermost leaf is little more than a sheathing
scale. The next shows by the groove down the stem oppo-
site how very near it came to diverging still more than it actu-
ally does from the interior leaves out of which the stem is
formed ; and the upper one by its greatly reduced size, reveals
the fact that the force employed in arresting the elongating
growth and in working up all the separate parts into a flower
is now in active operation." *

Spiranthes simplex, the Simple Spiranthes, " Aug.-Sept.," a
low, narrow-spiked species, graces the dry and sandy pastures
of the three southern States, especially along the coast ; scarce,

* Native Flowers and Ferns, I. Series, Vol. I,

Il8 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

perhaps, or confounded with other species, as I have but lately
been able to hear of a station in Connecticut. Like the other
Spiranthes, it ranges as far south as Florida, and except with
us, appears to be common enough. Its root is a " solitary,
spindle-shaped or oblong tuber;" it loses its leaves, which grow
like those of 5. gracilis, in a cluster at the ground, at flowering,
and produces " very short " blossoms.

So many weeds and wild plants have
white spikes or tufts of flowers that I
am not surprised when people to
whom I have shown one of our
Ladies' Tresses tell me they have
never seen it before ; and then again,
the time when the Ladies' Tresses are
due is not one when there is much
exploration of the fields, unless it is by
hunters, or " city folks " who are more
\q likely to have their eyes directed
upward toward a white birch they

FXG.37-NOODXNGPOGONIA. Wailt t0 ™^ OV SCribbk their

p. penduia. names on than toward the ground

they are tramping over, but there is no good reason why the
Rattle-snake Plantains should not be known to every one, for
all the year round their pretty rosetted leaves ornament the
woods.

The genus Goodyera, to which they belong, contains some
twenty-five species, scattered over Europe, temperate and
tropical Asia, and North America, and forms, according to
Darwin, " an interesting connecting link between several very
distinct forms." There are points of resemblance to both
Orchis and Spiranthes, and accordingly Goodyera, in our bot-
anies, stands between these two genera. Two of our species,
G. pub esc ens and G. repens, are common to Great Britain, and in
describing the latter, which he calls a "rare Highland

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAXD, l}g

Orchid," Darwin mentions first the " shield-like rostellum,"
a feature at once recalling the True Orchises. This is almost
square, and projects beyond the stigma ; it " is supported on
each side by sloping sides rising from the upper edge of the
stigma, in nearly the same manner as in Spiranthes. The sur-
face of the protuberant part of the rostellum is rough, and
when dry, can be seen to be formed cf cells ; it is delicate and
when slightly pricked,, a little milky viscid fluid exudes; it is
lined by a layer of very adhesive matter, which sets hard
quickly when exposed to the air. The protuberant surface of
the rostellum, when gently rubbed upward (as it would be
when an insect withdrew its head) is easily removed, and
carries with it a strip of membrane to the hinder part of which
the pollen-masses are attached. The sloping sides which sup-
port the rostellum remain (as in Spiranthes) projecting up like
a fork and soon wither." The pollen-masses become attached
to the back of the rostellum, much as in Spiranthes, and also
before the flower expands, and the anther-cell " ultimately
opens widely, leaving the pollen-masses almost naked but par-
tially protected within the membranous cup uniting the fila-
ment or supporting thread of the anther to the edges of the
stigma. The pollen-grains cohere in packets as in Orchis," and
these packets are tied together by strong elastic threads, " which
at their upper ends run together and form a single flattened
brown elastic ribbon, of which the truncated extremity adheres
to the back of the rostellum.

" The surface of the orbicular stigma is remarkably viscid,
which is necessary in order that the unusually strong threads
connecting the pollen packets should be ruptured. The lip is
partially divided into two portions ; the tip is reflex ed, and the
basal portion is cup-formed and filled with nectar." Gray,
speaking of this same species says, " All freshly opened blos-
soms have the column so directed — a little bowed forward
—that the tip of the. disc and of the anther are presented to

!20 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

view as you look into the narrow opening of the flower ; and a
proboscis or bristle introduced and following as it will the
curvature of the lip-like or nozzle-shaped apex of the lip, and
passed down to its nectar-bearing base will inevitably hit the
disc, and if detained a moment, will bring the pollinia away
when withdrawn. On re-introduction, the pollen-masses will
not pass down to the stigma, but lodge on the upper side of
the column, from which they were taken. But on looking into
older flowers of the same spike, still fresh and good, whether
their pollen-masses have been extracted or not, the stigma is
in full view, the summit of the column being now turned some-
what upward and backward ; and there is now room enough be-
tween it and the lip, for the pollen to pass ; indeed, now the pol-
len-masses will regularly hit the stigma." Bees proceed, there-
fore, in visiting these flowers just as they do when visiting the
Ladies'-Tresses. The description of the fertilization of G. repensy
I should have said before, agrees with that of G.pubescens.

Darwin again says : " In no other member of the Neottieae
(the tribe to which Goodyera and Spiranthes belong), ob-
served by me is there so near an approach to the formation of
a true stalk, and it is curious that in this genus, Goodyera, alone,
the pollen-grains cohere in large packets, as in the Ophrese "
(the tribe containing with us Orchis and Habenaria). " In
the rostellum being supported by sloping sides, which wither
when the viscid disc is removed — and in the existence of a
membranous cup or clinandrum between the stigma and
anther — and in some other respects, we have a clear affinity
with Spiranthes. Goodyera probably shows us the state of
the organs in a group of Orchids, now mostly extinct, but the
parents of many living descendants." In the chapter entitled,
" Gradation of Organs," he traces the development of the
caudicle or stem of the pollen-mass in the different genera.
"As I find that chloroform has a peculiar and energetic action
on the caudicles of all Orchids, and likewise on the glutinous

££»

FlG# 38 —Rattle-snake Plantains.
Goodyera pubescens. Goodyera repens.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. l2\

matter which envelopes the pollen-grains in Cypripedium and
which can be drawn out into threads, we may suspect that in
this latter genus— the least differentiated in structure of all
the Orchidese — we see the primordial condition of the elastic
threads by which the pollen-grains are tied together in other
and more highly developed species. ... In some Neotteae,
especially in Goodyera, we see the caudicle in a nascent con-
dition projecting just beyond the pollen-mass, with the threads
only partially coherent. ... In the Ophreae we have bet-
ter evidence than is offered by gradation, that their long, rigid
and naked caudicles have been developed, at least partially, by
the abortion of the greater number of the lower pollen-grains
and by the cohesion of the elastic threads by which these
grains were tied together. I had often observed a cloudy
appearance in the middle of the translucent caudicles in cer-
tain species ; and on carefully opening several caudicles of O.
pyramidalis, I found in their centres fully half way down
between the packets of pollen and the viscid disc, many pollen-
grains (consisting as usual, of four united grains), lying quite
loose. These, from their embedded position, could never by any
possibility have been left on the stigma of a flower, and were
absolutely useless." He supposes that " the changes have not
always been perfectly effected, and that during and after the
many inherited stages of the abortion of the lower pollen-
grains, and of the cohesion of the elastic threads, there still ex-
isted a tendency to the production of a few grains where they
were originally developed ; and these were consequently left
entangled within the now united threads of the caudicle. . . .
The little clouds formed by the loose pollen-grains within the
caudicles of O. pyramidalis are good evidence that an early pro-
genitor of this plant had pollen-masses like those of Goodyera,
and that the grains slowly disappeared from the lower parts,
leaving the elastic threads naked and ready to cohere into a
true caudicle."

124

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

The Downy Goody era, G. pnbescens, Barton's Veined-leaved
Neottia, with its popular names of Adder's Violet and Scrofula
Weed, is our best known and most common species, and its
blue-green velvety leaves may be seen in hanging-baskets at
any florist's. Josselyn, New England's Rarities, 1672, sup-
poses it to be a Pyrola, and says of the leaves, "the Ground
whereof is a sap Green embroydered (as it were) with many
pale yellow Ribs." Dewey speaks of the " elegant appear-
ance " presented by this plant, and of its great reputation.
among herb and Indian doctors, though in the only case in
which he saw it applied, " no results followed." Pursh says it
has a wide-spread reputation as an infallible cure for hydro-
phobia, and the American Herbal, published at Walpole, N. H.,
in 1 801, by Sam. Stearns, LL.D. (who gives as a prescription
for dyspepsia, a mixture of ants' eggs and buttermilk), men-
tions the Rattle-snake Plantain as follows: "Country people
use a decoction of the leaves for skin diseases, and Captain
Carver says the Indians are so convinced of its power as an
antidote that they allow a snake to drive its fangs into them,
then chew the leaves and apply them to the wound."

The Creeping Goodyera, G. rcpens, considered by many ta
be a variety of the former, and not, as Darwin and Gray both
maintain, a distinct species, rarely, if ever, attains to the height
of a foot. Its leaves are more pointed than those of the other,
more openly veined, and yellow-green in color ; the flowers are
not crowded on the spike, but fewer and arranged in a row ;
but intermediate forms are not uncommon. The difference in
the color of the leaves is sufficiently marked to be noticed by
one passing quickly through the place where both species grow.
I once found a very beautiful group of G. pnbcsccns : the leaves
were a dull blue with scarcely a tinge of green, and instead
of the usual net-work of veins, there was a silvery frost-work
over them. Goodyera Menziesii, a. species added to our New
England Flora within a few years by the intrepid explorations

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 125

of Miss Furbish in the extreme north of Maine, is larger than
the others, and in the structure of its flowers, says Gray, closely
resembles Spiranthes. " The lip is barely saccate below, . . .
anther ovate and long-pointed, borne on the base of the very
short proper column, which is continued above the stigma into
a conspicuous long tapering awl-shaped gland-bearing beak.
Flowers rather numerous in a looser often i-sided spike ;
flower-buds less pubescent (confounded with G. pubescens)!'

The leaves of the only living specimens I have seen, and
those poor ones, were much like those of G. repens in shape
but stiffer and less strongly marked. The net-work,- Gray says,
is sometimes entirely wanting. Like the other species, this
has a " root of thick fibres, from a somewhat fleshy creeping
root-stock." It derives it specific name from that of the
explorer Menzies.

A little pamphlet, entitled Plants of Maiden and Medford
(Mass.), arranging the species found in those localities accord-
ing to the months in which they bloom, has G. pubescens
down for May, a most unwarranted performance for it, and one
it does not attempt here in Vermont, though in very early sea-
sons it might be found the latter part of June ; still, we do not
expect it before August. Once in a while G. repens surprises us
in July, though this is later than G. pubescens, and being more
of a northern and mountainous plant it tempts the early frosts
by lingering on through September. G. Mejtziesii agrees with
it in date. G. repens, I find, grows in the Caucasus mountains,
and Prof. Gray tells us that in America it crosses the line of
6o°. G. Menziesii, which is the Spiranthes decipiens of Hooker,
ranges westward as far as California, where it is found under
the groves of sequoia, and in all probability it outstrips G.
repens in the attempt to reach the Arctic Ocean. G. pubescens,
is widely distributed in the eastern and southern United
States, and together with G. repens is found on the Carolina
mountains.

126

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

I do not often find a Rattle-snake Plantain in bloom ; and an
experienced botanist, whose travels in our State cover a wide
and varied tract of country, assures me (1883) that he has not
come across a flowering specimen for two years, though there
is hardly a patch of woods of any size that does not contain
both species.

I happened to be in a little grove of hemlocks two years
ago, in September, and noticing that these Orchids were quite
abundant, counted them roughly. Out of 200 plants of G.
pubcsccns, young and old, only 12 had flowered, and 20 plants
of G. repens furnished but 2 spikes. A more careful estimate in

the following year resulted in
giving 102 flower spikes from
572 plants, young and old, of
G. pubcsccns. One patch, that
lay like a mat on the ground,
had 226 plants in it and but
15 spikes. G. rcpcns in this
place is very scattered, and I
saw but one plant and this
had not flowered. I have
noticed that the Goodyeras
always mature their ovaries. In Scotland, G. rcpcns is fertil-
ized by humble-bees, and I suppose they perform the same
offices in this country ; but it would seem as if they must
drain the little white syrup pitchers in a very bungling way.
" That arrangements for propagation," says Sachs, " are espe-
cially promoted by the upright growth of the stem is evident
from the fact that in the large number of plants which develop
their leaves in a rosette close to the ground, or on a stem that
creeps along it, a rapidly ascending flower-stem is formed only
just before the unfolding of the flower-buds. [This is] strik-
ingly the case in the case of parasites (Neottia) which vegetate
below and blossom above."

Fig. 39.— Flower of Downy Goodyera.

Lip, the other parts removed.

Root of same.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. l27

By the middle of September the nights at the North have
become sparkling and frosty. My favorite spring in the woods
is choked with leaves ; the blue- stemmed golden-rods and the
tick-seeds begin to look a little discouraged, but it is still too
early for dolorous poems on the death of the flowers and man's
mortality. If I go in to the forest there is bustle and noise
on every side : the crows are gossiping over the scandalous
thefts of the blackbirds ; the jays are making their usual ado
about nothing ; the downy woodpeckers glide up the trees call-
ing " poort ! poort ! " whatever that may mean ; the squirrels
are poking nuts into the ground with their noses, covering each
one with nervous little taps of their paws, and as they know
perfectly well I cannot find their hoards, though I go down on
hands and knees, the beratings I get for looking on are quite
uncalled for. Outside, the western sloping meadows are warm,
and sprinkled with not a few daisies and dandelions; I even
find some violets. The old orchards are full of bluebirds, come
like professional singers to cheat us by twittering " last fare-
wells ; " and so, under the rich sky, it is no wonder that our
most beautiful Ladies' Tresses, Spiranthes cernna, has conde-
scended to open her fragrant, cream-white chalices : and leaving
out of mind 5. gracilis, sometimes found in October, I like to
think of it as ending the Orchid season ; the only species that
month can rightfully call her own.

5. cernua is popularly called the Drooping or Nodding-flow-
ered Ladies' Tresses, and in the old botanies, the Nodding-flow-
ered Neottia. It is very common in low ground, but varies so
in height, and in the number and size of its flowers, that one
ignorant of botanical distinctions cannot be blamed for mis-
taking it for other species. As to time, too, though it is late
blooming with us, I have known it to come as early as August
20th, in Berkshire Co., Mass. Two characteristic features of
this species are that, as Hooker expresses it, " the lateral sepals
cohere with the upper one and the petals for nearly their-whole

I28 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

length " and that the leaves usually wither about the time the
plant blossoms, although Gray mentions a variety that does re-
tain its leaves, and this produces " greenish-cream colored flow-
ers " and occurs in dry ground. I once examined five spikes of
5. cernua containing forty-five blossoms, and but five of these
had lost their pollen-masses, while one had lost its pollen-mass
but retained its disc. Some plants of this species, domesti-
cated in England, years ago, bloomed from August to the mid-
dle of November, and were thought to grow and make offsets
more freely than most species belonging to the family.

Sweet, in the British Flower Garden, enumerates a number
of American Orchids that were successfully grown in England
during the early part of the century (Liparis liliifolia was
naturalized as early as 1758), and is of the opinion that all
Orchids might be raised from seed by surrounding them with
" turfs of grass " for the young plants to attach themselves to
when the plants first vegetate, " as they appear to be all more or
less parasitic in a young state." Or, he would cover the ground
with moss, scatter the seeds over it, and with a watering-pot
wash them gently in. Species requiring a clayey soil he would
plant on a little " mount " made of chalk covered with sandy
loam mixed with powdered chalk. Stewart Murray, curator
of the Glasgow Botanical Garden, gives in the Transactions
of the Horticultural Society of London, 1826, a list of 26 North
American Orchids, Calypso borealis among them, and the follow-
ing account of his treatment of them. " I chose a well shel-
tered place, nearly the lowest in the garden, facing south, took
out the soil to the depth of 16 inches, set in a wooden frame,
2J^ feet high at the back, 15 inches in front, with movable
glass lights, and filled it to the ground level with a compost, ^
leaf-mould, ^ turfy peat full of roots and stems, the remaining
third M sphagnum, y2 sand, the whole well broken and mixed
but not riddled. Care was taken to keep the surface a little
higher for those requiring less moisture, like Cyp. arictimim,

Fig 40— Ladies' Tresses.
S. cernua, S. gracilis.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. -^j

to cut away the old stems in autumn and to give a slight
top-dressing of the same mixture." The frame was covered
with mats in winter and great pains taken with the drain-
age ; excessive moisture in his, as in Sweet's judgment, doing
more injury than cold.

Among those in New England who make a business of culti-
vating our native Orchids is Mr. Edward Gillett of Southwick,
Mass., who tells me that he has been most successful with the
following species : Cyps. arietinum, pubescens and parviftorum ;
Habcnarias virescens, Hookeri, ftmbriata, psycodes ; Goodyera
pubescens ; Spirant lies cernua and gracilis ; Aplectrum Jiycmale.
" Calypso borealis, obtained from Oregon, does well in sand, the
wire worms eating the bulbs badly if planted in anything else."
W. L. Foster, of Hanover, Mass., has succeeded well in raising
the Cypripediums in a partially shaded border of leaf mould
mulched with leaves. " C. acaule, however, always dies out
within a year or two. I think it might do better if seed were
sown in soil similar to that in which it naturally grows.
Calypso has been tried in various situations, but I have never
seen it after the second year, and others who have tried to
grow it have had the same experience. A friend has grown
many species with fair success in a brick tank filled with
swampy soil, mulched with sphagnum and kept moist." F. H.
Horsford, Charlotte, Vt., has the following "hardy " species on
his Trade List : Both Orchises ; Habenarias, hypcrborea, dila-
tata, obtusata, Hookeri, orbiculata, ciliaris, lacera, psycodes, fim~
briata ; the three Goodyeras ; Spiranthes, Romanzoviana, cernua,
graminea and simplex, Listeras, cor data and convallarioides ; A.
bulbosa ; Pogonias, ophioglossoides and verticillata ; C.pulchellus ;
Calypso borealis; T. discolor; both species of Liparis ; A.
hyemale and all the Cypripediums.

C. acaule appears to be invariably disobliging. Mr. R. A. Salis-
bury* as far back as 1812, planted it in peat earth mixed with

* Transactions London Hort. Society.

132 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

sand and leaves and treated it in various ways ; " but though it
started out well it always died the second or third year." A
correspondent of the Bulletin of the Torrey Club complains
that he used both sphagnum and nearly pure sand, with the
same results. It is possible that a persistent use of the
Dumesnil fertilizing- moss might effect a change in the con-
stitution of this plant. One English florist planted C.calccoltis,
" in narrow fissures in limestone rock, well drained and filled
with rich fibrous soil, increasing the plants by dividing them at
the roots." He thought an " eastern, shaded aspect " best suited
to them, while another says, " Lady's Slippers should be planted
in loamy soil where they get the morning sun only, and the
roots should be removed but seldom, as transplanting prevents
their flowering." Our C. pubcscens prefers shade, no doubt, but
I have known it to do well in an open garden, exposed to the
full force of the sun. Habenarias ftmbriata and blepJiariglottis
" thrive best in wet, peaty soil, partly* shaded. H. virescens
and Liparis liliifolia in rather dry, peaty soil." English florists
have considered a sandy, red loam best suited to OrcJiis spec-
tabilis, its size and beauty being greatly increased by cultiva-
tion, and for the Goodyeras, a mixture of silver sand and leaf
mould.

Some members of the Mass. Hort. Society, * at the annual
meeting in 1881, discussed the subject of the cultivation of
native Orchids. Mrs. T. L. Nelson, of Worcester, had found
Cyps. parviflorum, pnbescens and spectabile adapted to gardens.
" The latter forms its buds late in autumn under the old stalk,
and this shows that one could be grown as well as another."
Mrs. C. N. S. Horner, of Georgetown, had succeeded in winter
with C.pubesccns and the Goodyeras. Mr. E. H. Hitching had
transplanted successfully, Orchis spectabilis and C. spectabile,
and remarked that Liparis liliifolia, " one of our most deli-

* Annual Report, i83i.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. jg*

cate Orchids has been cultivated for years in the house and
blooms every year." Dr. Walcot had raised Habenarias ciliaris
and blepliariglottis, also Calypso borealis. Mr. Falconer, of the
Cambridge Botanic Garden, thought C. spcctabile almost the
only wild flower very amenable to winter forcing. " Some
Orchids, like Calypso, though very pretty are not generally
satisfactory as out-door plants, but are better for pot culture."

I have tried my own hand in a partially shaded corner of a
stone wall, adding to the leaf mould already collected there, a
mixture of swamp muck and sphagnum. All the Cypripe-
diums but acaule have taken kindly to their new home, and so
have Orchis spcctabilis, Habenarias Hooker i, viridis and psy codes,
Calopogon piilchellus, Liparis Loeselii, the Goodyeras, and Aplec-
trum hyemale. Calypso bloomed finely this spring (1883), but
some insect, that must have had purely malicious intentions,
gnawed off the blossoms and left them lying on the ground.
Pogonia pendula met with the same fate. There are at least
thirty species in the bed, and that those unnamed are not do-
ing well is due solely, I think, to a lack of sufficient moisture.

The appended List of Stations, though incomplete (bota-
nists appear to be " rare " in New Hampshire, and eastern Con-
necticut), is reliable as far as it goes. I have been aided in
compiling it by none but accurate observers, and out of a large
number of stations have selected enough to be of use to collect-
ors and to give a fair idea of the distribution of each species
through New England, though my pleasure in printing it is
considerably lessened by the fear that I may be sounding the
death-knell of some of the rarer kinds, Grant Allen says that
the Yellow Lady's Slipper in England now lingers but in two
places; one of these, " a single estate in Durham, where it is as
carefully preserved by the owner as if it were pheasants or
fallow-deer," and in New England so many wild flowers are, as
Higginson pathetically puts it, " chased into the recesses of the
Green Mountains," that I predict the formation, before-many

!34 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

years, of a society for their protection. Unhappily, it is not
always the ignorant pleasure-seeker who offends ; one can for-
give him when he tramples underfoot the flower that has
served to amuse him for the passing moment, but when it
comes to a professed botanist, who with selfish motives uproots
right and left and blots out name after name in the Flora of a
locality, it should be his lot to be branded with a longer and
more unflattering adjective than any he has written under the
crumbling, graceless specimens in his herbarium. The axe and
the drain-tile, too, will have their own way, and when we can
no longer defend our favorites from the despoiler or remove
them to some equally congenial swamp or forest, we can as a
last resort give them, in our own gardens, the protection of
fences, watch dogs, and city laws.

CALYPSO.

The sun-lit copse is passed, the shadows thicken,

With bated breath I press
Along the narrow path, now lost, now sighted,

That threads the wilderness.

Lest jealous bee or tattling wind give warning,

And from her dewy glade
The timid deity take flight to regions

No mortal can invade.

Not here nor there my wearied eyes behold her,
(Dimmed by her spells, perchance),

The fir-trees glower and the cedars brandish
Their arms at my advance.

Is this her shrine, where jeweled cobwebs tremble,

Silk curtains, rudely rent
As at my step profane the goddess hastened ?

(These tender ferns are bent).

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

Here the Linnceas swing their perfumed censers.

And Tiarellas pale
And pure as vestal virgins throng the spaces

In this hushed, peaceful vale.

Ah no! to deeper glooms the woodthrush calls me

To urge my glad pursuit ;
Her laureate, who melodiously flatters

On his rich silver flute.

See ! where that thoughtless wind the leaves is lifting,

Above her mossy bed
On lightest tiptoe poised Calypso hovers,

Her rosy wings outspread.

Thrice happy I, to gaze at last upon her !

But shall I venture near?
How frame my speech, or what petition offer

That she will deign to hear?

I haste ; I kneel ; for joy I cannot utter

One stammered word of praise ;
She nods her graceful head ; to wait my pleasure

The goddess fair delays.

*35

136

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

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138

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

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Norfolk, Granby,
Litchfield, Windsor,
Hamden. S. Windsor.

Bristol, Thompson ?
Monroe, Lebanon,
E. Haven, Salem,
Guilford. Lyme.

Colebrook, Suffield,

Norfolk. E. Hartford,

Granby, WTaterford.

Litchfield,

Plainfield,

Monroe,

liethany.

Goshen, Suffield,
Granby, Wrindham,
Litchtitld, Canterbury,
E. Hartford. Norwich.
S. Windsor, Waterford.
Hartford.

**

Cornwall. Thompson,

Eurlington, Canterbury,

Farmington. E. Hartford,

Plainviile, S. Windsor.

N. Haven,

Orange,

Stamford.

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N. Smithfield,
Johnston,
Providence,
Kingston.

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town, Reading,
Mt. Holyoke, Danvers,
Ashby, Woburn ?
Princeton, Canton,
Littleton, Stoneham.
Concord.
Tewkesbury.

Easthampton Northboro
E. Amherst, Sharon,

Kingston.

N. Bedf'd.

Gardner, Amesbury,
Littleton, Medford.
Northboro, Cambridge,
Concord, Newton,
Andover, Hanover,
Gloucester, S. Dennis,
Rockport, Harwich,
Seekonk. N. Bedford.

*

Williams- George-
town, town,
Northampton Rockport,
Sheffield, Medford,
Southwick, Lawrence,
Amherst, Canton,
L'gmeadow, N. Bedford.
Fitchburg,
Concord.

W'mstown, Rockport,
Sheffield, Andover,
N'ampton, Lawrence,
S'ampton. Methuen,
Springfield, Maiden,
Amherst, Newton,
Concord, Hanover.
Georgetown.

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Rumney, Jackson,
Groton, Conway,
Walpole, Gilmanton
Hanover, Exeter.
Richmond,
Fitzwilliam.

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Meriden, Exeter.
Keene.

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Gilmanton,
Dover,
Exeter.

**

Jefferson, Gorham,
Franconia, Conway,
Warren, N. Sandw'h
Hanover, Thornton,
Keene, Plymouth,
Chesterfield. Amherst,
Salem,
Exeter.

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Moosehead L. Ft. Kent,

Monson, Orono.

Cambridge.

New Sharon,

Fayette,

Hallowell,

Lewiston,

Brunswick.

*

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Fayette, Bangor(var.),

Waterford, Princeton?

Hebron ivar.),

Otisfield,

Manchester.

*

Monson,

Readfield,

Manchester,

Brunswick,

Saco,

Kennebunk.

**

Chesuncook E. Branch,

L., Bangor,
Monson, Rockland,
Harmony, Ellsworth,
Andover, E. Machias,
Manchest'r, Calais.
Brunswick,
Portland,
Wells.

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THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

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Bristol, Tolland !

Cheshire, Scotland,

Monroe, Norwich.

Washington.

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Methuen, Hanover,
Georgetown. Plymouth
N.Bedford

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Leverett, ter,
Fitchburg, Geo rge-
Concord, town,
Methuen, Lincoln,
Rockport. Weston,
Maiden,
Canton ?

*

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Sunderland, over,
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Mt. Tobey, Wellesley,
Springfield, Kingston,
Concord, N.Bedford
Methuen, Edgartown.
Georgetown,
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Amherst, Newton,
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Bristol, Barnet,
Burlington, Norwich,
Brandon. Windsor,

Bellows Falls,

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Vernon.

Stowe, Lyndon,
Hinesburg, Peacham,
Bristol. N. Pomfret.

*

Jefferson, Gorham,
Franconia, Randolph,
Warren, Conway,
Hanover, N.Sandw'h
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Claremont, Gilmanton,
Keene, Salem,
Hinsdale. Exeter.

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Lincoln, Mt.Willlard
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Auburn, Milltown.

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Monson, Ebeene L.,
Cambridge, Orono,
Farmington, Castine.
Richmond.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY.*

Publications containing references to, or descriptions of Orchids found in

New England.

SIMPLE LISTS.

The Portland Catalogue of Maine Plants.

Pub. by Port. Soc. Nat. Hist. Pamph. Portland, 1868.
Plants found in New Hampshire only on Alpine summits.

Geology, N. Hampshire, Vol. I. Concord, 1874. Prof. J. W. Chickering.
List of Plants collected in Salem, Mass. and its vicinity.

Proc. Essex Inst. Vol. III. Salem, 1S60.
Catalogue Plants growing without cultivation .within five miles of Yale College.
William Tully, M.D.

From Appendix, Baldwin's Hist. Yale College. Pamph. N. Haven, 1S31.

LOCAL FLORAS AND LISTS WITH OCCASIONAL

STATIONS.

Catalogue of the Flowering Plants of Maine. Geo. L. Goodale.

Proc. Portland Soc. Nat. Hist. Vol. I. Portland, 1862.
The Flora of Franconia in Springtime. W. C. Prime.

Lonesome Lake Papers, N. Y. Journal of Commerce, June, 1882.
Flora of Hanover, N. H. and vicinity. Prof. H. G. Jessup.

Pamph. — 1881 ?
Catalogue of Vermont Plants. Wm. Oakes, Joseph Torrey.

Thompson's Nat. Hist. Vt. Burlington, 1 843-1 S53.
Catalogue of Vermont Plants. G. H. Perkins, C. C. Frost.

In Archives of Science, Vol. I. Mclndoes Falls, 1872.
Catalogue Plants of Middlebury, Vt. Edwin James.

Hall's Statist. Acct. Town Middlebury. Middlebury, 1821.
General Catalogue of the Flora of Vermont. G. H. Perkins, Ph. D.

Pamph. Montpelier, 1882.

* The reader will find in Pritzel's " Iconum Botanicorum Index." a book found in any
large library, a very full list of works containing- plates of Orchids described in this monograph.

1 48 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

Catalogue of Plants growing without cultivation in State of Mass. Edward Hitch-
cock.

Report on Geol., etc., of Mass. Amherst, 1833.
Catalogue of Berkshire Co. Plants. Chester Dewey.

Catalogue of Plants growing without cultivation in the vicinity of Amherst College,
Edward Hitchcock.

Pamph. Amherst, 1S29.
Catalogue of Plants growing without cultivation within thirty miles of Amherst
College. E. Hitchcock, C. C. Frost.

Amherst, 1875.
Florula Bostoniensis. Plants of Boston and vicinity. Jacob Bigelow, M. D.

Boston, 1814. New Editions, 1824, 1S40.
List of the Plants of Maiden and Medford.

Pamph. Maiden, Mass., The Middlesex Institute, 1881.
Flora of Essex Co., Mass. John Robinson.

Published by Essex Inst. Salem, 1881.
Flora of Lynn. Cyrus M. Tracey.

Lynn, 1856.
Trees and Flowers of Cape Ann and of Pigeon Cove and vie. C. W. Pool, H. C.
Leonard.

Boston, 1873.
Flora of Georgetown. Mrs. C. N. S. Horner.

Georgetown Advocate. Feb. and March, 1876.
Catalogue of Plants of New Bedford and vicinity. E. W. Hervey.

Pamph. i860.
Flora of Worcester Co., Mass. Prof. Wm. Jackson. — 1884.
List of Plants of Litchfield, Conn., and vicinity. Jno. P. Brace.

Silliman's Journal, Vol. iy. I. Series, 1822.
Catalogue of Flowering Plants growing without cultivation within thirty miles of
Yale College.

Published by the Berzelius Society. Pamph. New Haven, 187S.
A Catalogue of Wild Plants growing in Norwich and vicinity. G. R. Case, Wm.
A. Setchell.

Pamph. Norwich, Ct., 1883.

DESCRIPTIVE ARTICLES.

Remarks on Habenarias orbiculata, dilatata, and Hookeri.

Annals N. Y. Lyceum, Nat. Hist. Vol. III. 1828-36.
Remarks, chiefly on the synonomy of several N. A. Plants of the Orchis tribe. Asa
Gray.

Am. Journal Science, Vol. 38. I series.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. iaq

Statistics Flora of the Northern United States. Asa Gray.

Am. Journal Science, Vol. 23, 1857.
Review of Darwin's Fertilization of Orchids through the Agency of Insects. Asa
Gray.

Am. Journal Science, II. Series, Vol. 34, Nov. 1862.
The Orchids of America.

Phila. Times, Nov. (7 ?), 1882.
Notes on the Flora of Vermont. Geo. H. Perkins, Ph. D.

Burlington Free Press, 1883.
Native Plants adapted for Winter Culture. Mrs. T. L. Nelson.

Transact, Mass. Hort. Soc, June, 18S2.
Herbaceous Plants of Mass. Chester Dewey.

Zoolog. and Bot. Survey Mass., Boston, 1839.
Beautiful Plants Growing Wild in the Vicinity of Boston. E. B. Kenrick.

Gardener's Mag., Vol. I., Boston, 1835-6.
On Pogonia ophioglossoides. J. H. Scudder.

Proceedings Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol 9, April, 1863.
Remarks on Cypripedium. j

Remarks on Habs. virescens and >- Asa Gray. Amer Jour., Vol. 36, Sept., 1863.
tridentata. J

Notes on Cyp. spectabile. ] Vol. 15, Nov., 1881.

Um. Naturalist. " Oct.
" Arethusa. J Vol. 12, July, 1877.

BOOKS AND ARTICLES WITH DESCRIPTIONS AND
ILLUSTRATIONS.

Botanique Nova Genera. A. Von Humboldt.

Paris, 1 815
British Flower Garden. Robert Sweet.

1st and 2nd series, London, 1823-31.
Flora North America. W. P. C. Barton, M.D.

Philadelphia, 1821.
Flora Boreali Americana. Sir W. J. Hooker.

London, 1840
Flore des Serres. Louis Van Houtte.

Ghent, 1854-5.
Illustrations of Orchidaceous Plants. Thos. Moore.

London, 1857.

jcq THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND.

Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States. Thos. Meehan.

I. series, Boston, 1879 ; II. series, Phila., 1880.
Wild Flowers of America. G. L. Goodale and I. Sprague.

Boston, 1S80.
Among our Footprints. W. Hamilton Gibson.

Harper's Magazine, Dec, 1881.
Beautiful Wild Flowers. A. B. Hervey & I. Sprague.

Boston, 1881.
Wild Flowers and Where they Grow. Misses Harris & Humphrey.

Boston, 1882.
Flowers of the Field and Forest. A. B. Hervey & I. Sprague.

Boston, 1S82.
Field, WTood and Meadow Rambles. Amanda Harris & Geo. F. Barnes.

Boston, 1882.

ADDRESSES.

Italicized names are those of botanists more or less familiar with the Orchids of the State
outside of their respective localities. Specialists are indicated by a capital S.

MAINE.

Miss Kate Furbish, Brunswick.

Osgoode Fuller, Camden.

F. S. Bunker, Cambridge.

Prof. F. Lamson Scribner, (Girard College, Phila., Pa).

Miss Laura Watson, Sedgewick, Hancock Co.

Miss Helen G. Atkins, Bucksport.

Mrs. Sarah C. Purington, Auburn.

C. C. Rounds, Farmington.

Miss J. Hills, Rockland.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.

Prof. William F. Flint, Winchester.
Rev. Joseph Blake, Gilmanton.
Mrs. D. VV. Gilbert, Keene.
Prof. H. G. Jessup, Hanover.

VERMONT.

Prof. George H. Perkins, Burlington.
Frederick H. Horsford, Charlotte. S.

THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. jci

Ferdinand Blanchard, M.D., Peacham.
H. A. Cutting, M.D., Lunenburgh.
Prof. Ezra Brai/ierd, Middlebury.
Lucius Bigelow, Rutland.
Rev. Herbert M. Denslow, Rutland. S.
Mrs. Ann E. Brown, Brattleboro.

MASSACHUSETTS

Edward Tucker man, LL.D., Amherst.
Edward Gillett, Southwick. S.
C. B. Nims, M.D., Northampton.
George A. Davenport, 8 Hamilton Place, Boston.
Mrs. Annie S. Downs, Andover.
Frederick H. Hedge, Public Library, Lawrence.
Frank S. Lufkin, Pigeon Cove.
Mrs. C. N. S. Horner, Georgetown.
E. Adams Hartwell, Fitchburg.
Miss Jane Hosmer, Concord.
Warren H. Manning, Reading. S.
Frank S. Collins, Box 55, Maiden.
Charles E. Faxon, Jamaica Plains.
W. L. Foster, Hanover.
George H. Martin, Bridge water.
Charles E. Ridler, Kingston.

RHODE ISLAND.

Arnold Green, Providence.
Prof. W. W. Bailey, Providence.

CONNECTICUT.

Prof. Daniel C. Eaton, New Haven.
James N. Bishop, Plainville.
Frederick Deming, M.D., Litchfield.
Miss M. Janette Elmore, Burnside.
Miss Jane G. Fuller, Scotland.
Col. G. R. Case, Norwich.
Isaac H olden, Bridgeport.
Oscar Harger, Peabody Museum, New Haven.

GENERAL INDEX.

Acontia luctuosa, with pollen-masses, 23.
Adam and Eve, see Aplectrum hyemale.
Adder's-mouth, see Microstylis.

" Microstylis, see Microstylis

oph ioglossoides.
Pogonia, see P. ophioglossoides.
Adder's Violet, see Goodyera.
Allen, Grant, forms of leaves, 28 ; //. viridis,
4S;Z.. L&selii, 65; S.Roinanzoviana,
105; Yellow Lady's Slipper, 133.
Angrcectim sesquipedale, Darwin's account of,

25-

Anther, explanation of term, 7.

Aplectrum, Nuttall, 74.

Aplectrum hyemale , Nuttall, 74; illustration, 71.

Arethusa, Linnaeus, 54.

Arethitsa bulbosa, Linnaeus, 53; peculiar forms,

54 ; fertilization, 55 ; illustrations,

5i> 54-
Arethuseae, peculiar forms, 57.
Auricles or crests, rudimentary, 116.

Bailey, Prof. W. W., poem, Calypso, 53.

Barton, W. P. C, C.acaule,?.q\L.cordata,<£,\A.
hyemale, 74; P. op h ioglossoides, 85.

Bastin, Prof. E. S., C. spectabile, curious form
of, 76.

Bees, fertilizers of Orchids with short nectaries,
24; fertilizers of C. pitbescens, 35, 36 ;
A ndrena parznila, 35 ; Halicta, 36 ;
Augochlora, 36 ; fertilizers of spe-
cies of Platanthera, 39 ; attracted
by certain colors, 45, 46; possessed
of poor sight, 46 ; fertilizers of A.
bulbosa, 55 ; of Listera, 64 ; of H.
orbiculata, 102 ; of Spiranthes, 109 ;
with attached pollen-masses, nij
112; fertilizers of G. repens, 120, 126.

Beetles, pollen-devouring, 23 ; in labellum of
C.pubescens, 36; avoiders of certain
colors, 63 ; grammoptera Icevis with
attached pollen-masses, illustration,
59 ; fertilizers of C. spectabile, j3.

Bentham, Dr. George, on Cypripedium, 26 ; S.
Romanzoviana, 106.

Bracted Green Orchis, see Habenaria viridis,
var. bracteata.

Britton, Dr. N. L., on root of S. gracilis, 106.

Broad-leaved Spiranthes, see S. lati/olia.

Broad -leaved Ladies1 Tresses, same as above.

Butterflies, fertilizers of Orchids with long nec-
taries, 24 ; of II. Hookeri, 41 ; at-
tracted by certain colors, 46.

Burroughs, John, on Cypripedium, 3G, 38; Are-
thusa, 54; Calopogon, 85.

Calopogon, R. Brown, 80.

Calopogon pulchellus, R. Brown, 79-34 ; fertili-
zation, 84; illustrations, 80, 81.

Calypso, Salisbury, 49.

Calypso borealis, Salisbury, 46-53 ; related to
Liparis and Microstylis, 49; poems,
53, 134; illustration, 47.

Camel's-foot, see Cyp- acaule.

Caudicles of pollinia, explanation of term, 21 ;
description of their contraction in
O. spectabilis, 22 ; rudimentary in
Goodyera, 123.

Changes effected by insects, 63.

Characteristics of Orchids, 6-9.

Clinandrum or membranous cup, in P. ophio-
glossoides, 86; in Spiranthes, 108; in
Malaxis, 115, 116; in Goodyera, 119,
120.
' Colors of Flowers, Grant Allen on, 45; attract-
ive to insects, 45; to beetles, 63.

Column, explanation of term, 7.

Corallorhiza, Haller, 73; illustration, 73.

Corallorhiza innata, R. Brown, 73.

" multi/lora, Nuttall, 89 ; illustra-

tion., 71.
" odontorhiza, Nuttall, 73.

" verna, Nuttall, see C. innata.

" Wistariana, Conrad, see C. odont-

orhiza.

Coral-root, see Corallorhiza.

Coral-tooth, " "

Cranefly Orchis, see Tipularia.

Creeping Goodyera, see Goodyera repens.

Crest, medial, or process, in Ophrys, 41 ; Her-
minium jnonorchis, 42.

Cultivation of Orchids, 128-133.

Cypripedium, Linnaeus, 27; distinguished from
other genera, 26, 37 ; fertilization,
28; translucent spots on labelium,
36; comparative abundance of spe-
cies, 38; illustration, 27*

154

GENERAL INDEX.

Cypripedium acaule, Aiton, popular names, 26;
fertilization, 28; structure, 28, 29,
37 • peculiar forma, 29 ; habitat,
30 ; poem, 30 ; illustration, 33.

" album, 75.

" arietinum, R. Brown, 37, 145 ; illus-

tration, 33.
calceolus, 32, 35 ; illustration (from
Miiller), 27.

" parviflorum, Salisbury, 36. 38; illus-
trations, 27. 33.

" pubescens, Willdcnow. 31-37; habitat,
32; fertilization^, 36; peculiarity
of sepals, 37.

" spectabile, Swartz. 75; curious speci-

men of, -6 ; fertilized by beetles,
78; illustrations, frontispiece, 27.

Darwin, Charles, on the structure of Orchids.
6-8 : on the study of Orchids, 10 ;
on 0. mascula, 21; Acontia luctuosa,
illustration, 23 ; on nectaries, 24 ;
on A ngrcecum sesquipedale, 25 ; fer-
tilization of C. calceolus, and C
pubescens. 35 ; fertility of Orchids,
38; fertilization of H. chlorantha, 41,
42; of P. viridis. 44; on Arethusese,
57; fertilization of L. ovata, 5S-60;
changes in position of labellum. 83;
structure and fertilization of S.
autumnalis, 106-110; auricles in
Ophrys, 115 ; fertilization of Good-
yera, 1 18-123 ; gradation of organs,
120; illustrations, 7, 20, 23, 41, 44,
102, 107.

Degeneracy of species, Grant Allen on, 43, 65.

Dendrobiuni chrysanthum, 88.

Depression of pollinia. in O. spectablis, 22 ; H.
Hookeri, 43; H. viridis, var., 44;
H. fimbriata. 97 ; //. tridentata,
98 ; II. orbiculata, 105; II. psycodes,
111 ; II. ciliaris. 114.

Dewey, Chester, on H. dilatata, 66 ; G. pubes-
cens, 124.

Diptera. 46.

Disc, viscid, explanation of term, 21.

Downy Goodyera, sec Goody era pubescens.

Dcwny Lady's Slipper, see Cyp. pubescens.

Dragon-claw, see Corallorkiza odontorhiza.

Drooping-flowcrcd Ladics'-Tresscs, see Spi-
rant hes ccr7iua.
11 Ncottia, same as above.

Drum-like pedicel of //. Hookeri, 42 ; of H.
fimbriata, 97 ; H. orbiculata, 102.

Dwarf Orchis, see Habeneria rotundi/olia.

Early Coral root, see Corallorkiza innata.
Epipactis convallarioides, see Listera convall.
lati folia, 116.
" palustris, 116.

Feather-leaved Orchis, see Habenaria ble-
phariglottis.

Fertilization, O. spectabilis, 21 ; Cypripedium,
28 ; pubescens, 35 ; Platanthera, 39 ;
II. viridis, vox. bracteata, 44; A.
bulbosa, 55; L. ovata, 58; Z.. La?selii,
65; II. dilatata. 60; //. hyperbcrea,
70 ; C. spectabile, 78 ; Calopogon pul-
chellus, 84 ; P. opli ioglossoides. £6 ;
H. fimbriata, 97 ; H. tridentata,
98; II. virescens. 101; H. orbiculata,
102 ; S. gracilis and S. cer-nua, 107 ;
//. lacera. no ; II. psycodes. in ; H.
ciliaris and //. blephariglottis, 114,
G. rcpens, 119.

Fertility of Orchids. 38.

Flaming Orchis, see Habenaria psycodes.

Flies in labellum of C. pubescens, 36.

Fringed Orchises 93.

Furbish, Miss, on C. acajde, 29; C. spectabile,
76 ; G. Menziesii, 125.

Goodale, Elaine, poem, 30.

" Prof. Geo. C, on C. acaule, 28; Are-

thusa, 54 ; Calopogon pulchellus,
84.
Goodyera, R. Drown, 118-123.

" Creeping, sec G. repens.

" Downy, see G. pubescens.

" Menziesii, Lindley, 124.

" pubescens, R. Brown, 124-126 ; il-

lustrations, 121, 126.
" repens, R. Brown, 1 18-126; illustra-

" tion, 121.

Gradation of Organs, Darwin on, 120.
Grammoptera losvis, with attached pollen-
masses, illustration, 53.
Grass-Pink, see Calopogon pulchellus.
Grassy Spiranthes, see ^". graminea.
Gray, Prof. Asa, on structure of flower of an
Orchid, 6, 7 ; Synopsis of Orchis
Family, n-16; on fertilization of
O. mascula, 21 ; of Cypripedium,
2S ; habitat of C. acaule, 30 ; Pla-
tanthera, 39, 40 ; on fertilization of
H. viridis, var. bracteata, 44; of
A . bulbosa, 55 ; color of P. verticil-
lata, 56 ; on structure and fertiliza-
tion of //. dilatata, 69; of //. hyper-
borca, 70; on fertilization of H.
fimbriata, 97 ; of II tridentata,
97 ; of //. virescens. 98 ; of H. orbi-
culata, 102 ; on 6\ Ronianzoviana,
105 ; fertilization of //. lacera, no ;
oi II. psycodes, in ; of //. ciliaris,
114; of 77. blephariglottis, 114; on
fertilization of G. repens, 119; il-
lustrations, 54, 102.
Green Orchis, Bractcd, see Habenaria viridis,
var. bracteata.

GENERAL INDEX.

155

Green Orchis, Northern, see Habenaria hyper-

borea.
Greenish Orchis, see Habenaria lacera.
Gymnadenia, R. Erown, 39.

" tridentata, Lindley, see Habena-

ria tridentata.

Habenaria, Willdenow, 40; number in New

England, 40; botanical divisions, 57.

Habenaria blephariglottis, Hooker, 113-115 ;

var. holopctata, 114.

" ciliaris, R. Brown, 113-116 ; note,

90; illustrations, 114, 116.
" chlorantha, 41 ; illustration, 41.

" dilatata, Gray, 66-70 ; illustration,

67.
" dilatata, Hooker (Ex. Flora), see

H. hyperborea.
" Jimbriata, R. Brown, 93-97 ; curi-

ous form, 93 ; illustration, 95.
" flava, Gray, see H. virescens.

" herbiola, R. Brown, same as above.

" Hookeri, Torrey, 40-43, 145 ; var. ob-

longifolia, J. A. Paine, 41 ; illus-
trations, 18, 41.
44 hyperborea, R. Brown, 69.

" lacera, R. Brown, no; illustra-

tion, 116.
u macrophylla, Hooker, see H. orbi-

cuLita.
*' obtusata, Richardson, 79 ; illustra-

tion, 73.
*' orbiculata, Hooker, see H. Hook-

eri.
" orbiculata, Torrey, 101 ; illustra-

tions, 99, 102.
4i psycodes, Gray, 110-113 • illustra-

tion, 99.
*' rotundifolia, Richardson, see Or-

chis rotitndifolia.
tridentata, Hooker, 97 ; illustra-
tion, 67.
virescens, Sprengel, 98-101 ; illus-
tration, 98.
" viridis, R, Brown, var. bract eat a,

Reichenbach, 43-45, 145 ; illustra-
tions, 43, 44.
Habenaria, Bracted Green, see Habenaria
viridis var.
" Hooker's, see H. Hookeri.

" Tattered-fringed, see H. lacera.

" Torn-flowered, see H. lacera.

Heal-all, see Habenaria orbiculata.
Heart -leaved Listera, see L. cordata.
Herminium monorchis, crest in, 42.
Hcrvey, Rev. A. B., on Calopogon pulchellus,

84.
Higginson, T. W., on C. acaule, 29 ; C. pu-
bescens, 32 ; on extinction of spe-
cies, 133.
Hooker, Sir J. D., on root of C. pubescens, 36.

Hooker, Sir William, on A. bulbosa, 54; H.
dilatata, 63; C. innata, 73; //. ob-
tusata, 79 ; S. cernua, 127.

Hymenoptera, 46, 102.

Indian Moccasin, see C. acaule.

Insects, dependence of Orchids on them and
vice versa, 9, 24 ; development of
proboscis, 25 ; boring into necta-
ries, 40 ; attracted by smell, 46 ; by
colors, 46; partial to L. oz<ata, 60;
structural adaptation, 63 ; natural
selection, 63; night-flying, 102; on
H. psycodes, 112.

Labellum (or shoe-shaped lip), explanation of
term, 6 ; development of, 8 ; struct-
ure in Cyp. acaule, 28 ; Cyp. pu-
bescens, 32, 35, 35 ; C. arietinum,
37 ; Calypso, 49 ; C. speciabile, 75 ;
illustrations, 27.
Lady's Slipper, see Cypripedium.
" Downy, see C. pubescens.

" Pink, see C. acaule.

" Ram's-head, see C. arietinum.

" Showy, see C. spectabile.

*k Stemless, see C. acaule.

". Yellow, see C. pubescens and C.

parviflorum.
Ladies' Tresses, seeSpiranthes.

" Broad-leaved, see S. lati/olia.

Grassy, see S. graminea.
" Nodding, see S. cernua.

" Simple, see S. simplex.

" Slender, see S. gracilis.

Large Coral-root, see Corallorhiza multi-
flora.
Large round-leaved Orchis, see Habenaria

orbiculata.
Leaves, Grant Allen's theory, 28; of C. pubes-
cens, 34 ; growth of in C. pulchel-
lus, 80; in Pogonia, 117.
Lepidoptera, 42, 46, 101, 102.
Lily-leaved Liparis, see L. liliifolia.
Lii7todorum pr&cox, Walter, see 5. grami-
nea.
Lip, or labellum, 6.
Liparis, Richard, 49, 64.

Liparis liliifolia, Richard, 65 ; illustration, 65.
" Lceselii, Richard. 64, 65 ; illustra-

tions, 61, 64.
" pendula, 115.

Listera, R. Brown, 58.

Listera convallarioides, Hooker, 64 ; illustra-
tions. 61, 64.
" cordata, R. Brown, 58 ; illustra-

tion, 61.
" ovata, R. Brown, 58-60; illustra-

tion, 59.
Listera, Heart-leaved, see L. cordata.

" Long-lipped, same as above.

Long leaved Malaxis, see Liparis Laeselii.

56

GENERAL INDEX.

Malaxis correana, Barton, see Liparis Lce-
sclii.
" liliifolia, Swartz, see Liparis lilii-

folia.
" longifolia, see Liparis Lceselii.

" paludosa, 65, 115.

Meehan, Prof. Thomas, on root of O. specta-
bilis, 26 ; on Cyp. acaule., 30 ; C.
pubescens, 32 ; C. arieti'.utm, 37 ;
Calypso, 49 ; Spiranthes, 66 ; range
of S. cernua and .S". gracilis, 66 ; on
C.pulchellus, 80; .P. ophioglossoides,
85 ; H.funbriata, 94 ; Pogonia, 117.
Microstylis, Nuttall, 49, 89.
Microstylis vionophyllos, Lindley, 89 ; illustra-
tion. 89.
" ophioglossoides, Nuttall, 89 ; illus-

tration, 89.
Microstylis, Adder's-mouth, see M. ophioglos-
soides.
" One-leaved, see M. monophylloi,.

occasin-flower, see Cypripedium.
Moths, in Madagascar, 25 ; fertilizers of Pla-
tanthera, 39 ; of H. Hooker i, 41 ;
attracted by colors, 46 ; fertilizers
of //. psy codes, in ; illustrations,
23, 102.
Movements of pollinia, see depression of pol-

linia.
M tiller, Hermann, on characters of Orchis fam-
ily, 9; concealment of pollen, 23 ;
concealment of honey, 24 ; label-
lum of C. calceolus, illustration, 27 ;
on fertilization of C. pubescens, 35 ;
fertility of an Orchid, 38 ; colors of
flowers, 45, 63 ; Listera, 60, 63 ;
humble-bees and pollen-masses,
112 ; illustrations, 27, 57.

Naked-gland Orchises, see Gymnadenia.
Nectar, in 0. mascula, 22 ; in Platanthera, 40 ;
secreted by lip of P. viridis, 44 ;
in A. bulbosa, 55; secreted by lip
of L. ovata, 60 ; in C. spectabile, 78;
in S- autumnalis, 108, 109; in H.
psy codes, 11 1 ; in H. lacera, in ; in
G. rep ens, 119.
Nectary, structure of, as affecting fertilization,
22, 24; of Angrcecum, 25; punct-
ured by insects, 40 ; of Eracted
Green Orchis, 43 ; in H. virescens
and II. viridis, 101.
Neottia tort His, Pursh, Barton, see Spiran-
thes graminca.
Neottia, Drooping-flowcrcd, see Spiranthes
cernua.
" Nodding-flowered, same as above.

11 Veined-leaved, see Goody era pu-

bescens.
Neottia, the tribe, 58, 120.
Noah's Ark, sec Cyp. acaule.

Nodding-flowered Ladies'-Tresses, see Spiran-
thes cernua.

Nodding Pogonia. see P. pendula.

Northern Green Orchis, see Habenaria hyper-
borea.

Northern White Orchis, see Habenaria dila-
tata.

Old Goose, see Cyp. acaule.
One-leaved Adder's-mouth, see Microstylis-
7iionophyllos.
" Microstylis, same as above.

Ophrydeae, the tribe, 40 ; development of cau-

dicle, 123.
Ophrys, caudicles in, 108 ; auricles or crests

absent from some species, 1 16.
Orchis Family, characters of. 6-9 ; synopsis of,

11-15-
Orchis, Linnaeus, 39.

Orchis bidentata, Elliott, see Habenaria tri~
dentata.
" ciliaris, Linnaeus, see H. ciliaris.

" dilatata, Pursh, see H. dilatata,

Gray.
" fimbriata, Pursh, Bigelow, see

H . psy codes.
" fimbriata, Aiton, Willdenow,

Hooker's Ex. Flora, see H. fim-
briata,
" fissa, Muhlenberg in Willdenow,

see H. psy codes.
" flava, Linnaeus, see H. virescens.

" fuscescens, Pursh, same as above.

" grandiflora, Bigelow, see H. fim-

briata.
" herbiola, Pursh, see H. virescens.

" incissa, Muhlenberg in Wildenow,.

see H. psy codes.
" lacera, Michaux, see H. lacera.

" maculata, 38.

" mascula, 20 ; illustration, 20-22.

" morio, 94.

11 obtusata, Pursh, see H. obtusata.

" orbiculata, Pursh, see H. orbicu-

lata, Torrey.
11 psy codes, Muhlenberg, see H.

lacera.
u psycodes, Linnaeus, see H. psy codes.

" pyramidalis, 123.

rotundifolia, Pursh, 57 ; illustra-
tion, 51.
" scutellata, Nuttall, see H virescens.

" spectabilis, Linnaeus, 20, 145; fertili-

zation, 21, 22; illustrations, 18, 25.
" iridc/ttata. Muhlenberg, Willde-

now, see H. tridentata.
11 virescens, Muhlenberg, Willdenowv

see //. virescens.
Orchis, Dwarf, see 77. obtusata.
" False, 39.

GENERAL INDEX.

157

Orchis, Feather-leaved, see H. blephari-
glottis.
" Flaming, see H. psycodes.

Fringed, 93.
" Gay, see Orchis spectabilis.

Greenish, see H. viresce7is.
" Green Fringed, see//", lacera.

Large Purple Fringed, see H.fim-
briata.
'' Large Two-leaved, see H. orbicu-

lata, Torrey.
Naked-gland, see Gymnadenia.
'' Northern Green, see //. hyperborea.

" Northern White, see H. dilatata.

" One-leaved, see H. obtusata.

Round-leaved, see Orchis rotundi-
folia.
" Showy, see Orchis spectabilis.

" Small Purple Fringed, see H. psy-

codcs.
" Small Two-leaved, see H. Ilookeri.

" Spring, see O. spectabilis.

" Three-leaved, see H. tridentata.

" True, 39.

" White Fringed, see H. blephari-

glottis.
" Yellow Fringed, see H. Ciliaris.

Ovary, or Ovarium, explanation of term, 7.

Papillae, in Cypripedium, 28.
Pedicel, Drum-like, 42, 102.
Peristylus viridis, 44; illustration, 44.
Phaneroptera curvicauda, 111.
Plantanthera dilatata, see//, dilatata.

" Jimbriata, Lindley, see H. psycodes.

" fava, Gray, see H. -virescens.

holopetala, Lindley, see H. ble-
phariglottis. var. holopetala.
'' Hookcri, see H. Hooker i.

" Huronensis, Lindley, see H. hyper-

borea.
" psycodes, Lindley, see H. lacera.

" rotundifolia, Lindley, see Orchis

rotundifolia-
Platanthera, Richard, 39 ; conspicuousness of

some species at night, 102.
Pogonia, Jussieu, 56 ; development of different

species, 117.
Pogonia affinis, C. F. Austin, 56.

" ophioglossoides, Nuttall, 80-85, 117;

fertilization, 84; illustrations, 80,81.

" pendicla, Lindley, 116; illustration,

118.
" verticillata, Nuttall, 56, 117 ; note, 90 ;
illustration, 55.
Pogonia, Adder's-mouth, see P. ophioglossoides.
u Nodding, see P. pendula.

" Pendent, same as above.

" Snake-mouth, see P. ophioglossoides.

" Whorled, see P. verticillata.
Pollen-mass, explanation of term, 21, 145.

Pollinium, or pollen-mass with stalk and disc,

sec above.
Preacher in the Pulpit, see Orchis Spectabilis.
Purple Fringed Orchis, see H.fimbriata.
Pursh, color of Cyp. acaule, 29 ; Aplectruvi

hyemale, 74, ; on G. pubesccns, 124.
Putty-root, sec Aplectruvi hyemale.

Ragged-fringed Orchis, see //. lacera.

Ram's-head Lady's Slipper, see Cyp. arieti-
num.

Rattlesnake Plantain, see Goodyera.

Rein Orchis, sec Habenaria.

Rostellum, explanation of term, 7; in O. mas-
cula, 21 ; lacking in Cypripedium,
27; structure in //. Hoe/eeri, 41; in L.
orata, 58-60 ; in H. dilatata, 69 ;
lacking in P. ophioglossoides, 88 ;
structure in Spiranthes, 106-109 ;
in Goodyera, 1 19-120 ; in O. specta-
bilis, 145; illustrations, 7, 20, 59, 107.

Roots of Orchids, 9.

Round-leaved Orchis, see O. rotundifolia.

Sachs, on Corallorhiza, 73 ; reference to his
Text Book, 116 ; on structure of Ne-
ottia, 126.
Scape, explanation of term, 9,
Scrofula-weed, see Goodyera pubescens.
Scudder, Dr. Samuel H., on fertilization of P.
ophioglossoides, 85-88.
! Seeds, number produced by Orchids, 38.
Sesia, species of , fertilizers of H. psycodes, in,

112.
Showy Lady's Slipper, see Cyp. spcctabile.
Small Late Coral-root, see Corallorhiza odonto-

rhiza.
Small Round-leaved Orchis, see O. rotundi-
folia.
Smaller Two-leaved Orchis, see //. Hookeri.
Smith, S. I., on fertilization of Cyp. spectabile,

78 ; H. psycodes, n 1.
Snake -mouth Pogonia, see P. ophioglossoides.
Species identical with those of Great Britain.
Sphynx drupiferarum, with pollen-masses,

102.
Spiranthes, Richard, 65 ; structure of, 106.
Spiranthes, a-stivalis, Oakes' Cat., see S. lati-
folia.
"• autu?nnalis, 106 ; illustration, 107.

" Bcckii, Lindley, see S. gracilis.

" cernua, Richar i, 127 ; structure

and fertilization, 106-110; illustra-
tion, 129.
u decipie?is, see Goodyera Jfenziesii.

" gemtnipara, Lindley, see S. Ro-

manzoviana.
" gracilis, Bigelow, 106-110; illus-

tration, 129.
" grami7iea, Lindley. var. Walteri,

106 ; illustration, 103.

58

GENERAL INDEX.

Spiranthes, lafifolia, Torrey, 65.

" plantaginca, Torrey in N. Y.

Flora, not of Lindlcy, see S. lati-
folia.
" Romanzoviana, Chamisso, 105 ; il-

lustrations, 103, 106.
" Torlilis, Chapman, see S. gra-

in ine a.
Spiranthes, Broad-leaved, see 5". latifolia.
Grassy, see 6". graminea.
Slender, see S .gracilis.
Simple, sec S. simplex.
Stemless Lady's Slipper, see Cyp. acaule.
Sterile stamen, 27 ; illustration, 27.
Stigma, explanation of term, 7.

Tattered fringed Orchis, see Habenaria la-

cera.
Thoreau on Fringed Orchises, 94.
Three Birds, see Pogonia pendula.

Three-toothed Orchis, see Habenaria triden-
tata. The name might apply to H
viridis, also.

Torn-flowered Habenaria, see II. lacera.

Tipularia, Nuttall, 90,

Tipularia discolor, Nuttall, 90: illustration, 91.

Trelease, Prof., on spots on labellum in Cypri-
pedium, 36.

Twayblade, see Liparis and Listera.

Venus'-Slipper, see Cypripedium.
Viscid disc, see Disc.

Wasps, attracted by colors, 46 ; agents in devel-
opment of species, 64.
Whippoorwill Shoe, see Cyp. pubescens.
Whorled Pogonia, see P. vcrticillata.
Wooster, David, on root, in Orchis, 145.

Yellow Fringed Orchis, see Habenaria ciliaris.
Yellow Lady's Slipper, see Cyp. pubescens.

INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

POPULAR NAMES WILL BE FOUND IN GENERAL INDEX.

Acontia luctuosa (from Darwin), 23.

Aplectrum hy male, 71.

Arethusa bulbosa, 51, 54 (from Gray).

Calopogon pulchellus, 80, 81.

Calypso borealis, 47.

Corallorhiza (root), 73.

" multiflora, 71.

Cypripedium, 27.

acaule, 33.
arietinum, 33.

calceolus (from Muller), 27.
parviflorum, 27, 33.
spectabile, frontispiece.
Goodyera pubescens, 121, 126.

" repens, 121.
Habenaria chlorantha (from Darwin), 41.
" ciliaris, 114, 116.

11 dilatata, 67.

" fimbriata. 95.

" Hookeri, 18, 41.

" lacera (from Sweet), 116.

" obtusata, 78.

" orbiculata, 99, 102 (from Gray).
" psycodes, 99.
" tridentata, 67.

" virescens, 98.
" viridis, var., 43, 44.

Liparis liliifolia, 65.

" Lceselii, 61, 64.
Listera convallarioides, 61,64.

11 cordata. 61.

" ovata (from Muller), 59

Microstylis monophyllos, 89.
" ophioglossoides, 8g.

Orchis mascula (from Darwin), 20.
" rotundifolia, 51.
" spectabilis, 18, 25.

Peristylus viridis (from Darwin), 44.
Pogonia ophioglossoides, 81.

" pendula, 118.

" verticillata, 55.

Section of the flower of an Orchid (from Dar-
win), 7.
Sphynx drupiferarum (from Darwin), 102.
Spiranthes autumnalis (from Darwin), 107.

" cernua, 129.

" gracilis. 129.

" graminea, var., 103.

" Romanzoviana, 103, 106.

Tipularia discolor, 91, 159.

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