6o 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



LAELIA MA J. 4 LIS. 



A charming Mexican orchid of lavender color. This 



plant likes plenty of sunlight and a temperature 



of from 55° to 60°. 



than to assign a member of the Arum 

 family to the orchid family? 



And yet when one goes to the botan- 

 ies to learn what an orchid really is, 

 the confusion seems not to be cleared 

 up, but rather to be increased, though 

 evidently the botanist thinks that he 

 has made the whole thing clear in the 

 following words : 



"Herbs, distinguished by perfect 

 zygomorphic gynandrous flowers, with 

 6-merous (sometimes apparently 5- 

 merons) perianth adnate to the i-celled 

 ovary, with innumerable ovules on 3 

 parietal placentae, and with either 1 or 

 2 fertile stamens, the pollen cohering 

 in masses." 



When the ordinary reader, not es- 

 pecially versed in botanical terms, 

 reads that description he knows a lit- 

 tle less as to what an orchid really is 

 than before he read it. An orchid is 

 a decidedly irregular flower in which 

 the parts that correspond to those of a 



regular flower are exceedingly irregu- 

 lar and unlike the ordinary form. But 

 it does not follow that every irregular 

 flower, as, for example, the Jack-in-the- 

 pulpit, is an orchid. So let us be con- 

 tented with the statement that in an 

 orchid, petals, stamens and stigmas are 

 of a decidedly peculiar and orchida- 

 ceous form. There is, first of all, the 

 lip which is really a transformed petal 

 and there are a stamen and various 

 other parts. Perhaps our most beau- 

 tiful native orchid is the lady's slipper 

 or moccasin flower or whip-poor-will's 

 shoes, three names for one flower. Al- 

 most everybody recognizes that as an 

 orchid because it is similar to the cul- 

 tivated Cypripedium. And so our com- 

 mon fringed orchis has its close coun- 

 terpart in the greenhouse varieties, but 

 not every one thinks of our Pogonia or 



BRASSIA LAWRENCEANA LONGISSIMA. 

 Very striking in its appearance. The sepals and 

 petals are seven and eight inches long, dark orange- 

 yellow with purple blotches. The plant comes from 

 Northern Colombia. It will grow in a temperature of 

 from 60° to 65° in a moist atmosphere and a shaded 

 positior. 



