PINK 



bristly points. The blossoms grow in short terminal clusters. 

 These berries also are smaller than those of the common cran- 

 berry. 



ADDER'S MOUTH. 



Pogonia ophioglossoides. Orchis Family. 



Stem. — Six to nine inches high; from a fibrous root. Leaves. — An 

 oval or lance-oblong one near the middle of the stem, and a smaller or bract- 

 like one near the terminal flower, occasionally one or two others, with a 

 flower in their axils. Flower. — Pale pink, sometimes white ; sweet-scented; 

 one inch long ; lip bearded and fringed. 



Mr. Baldwin maintains that there is no wild flower of as pure 

 a pink as this unless it be the Sabbatia. Its color has also been 

 described as a ''peach-blossom red." As already mentioned, 

 the plant is found blossoming in bogs during the early summer 

 in company with the Calopogons and sundews. Its violet-like 

 fragrance greatly enhances its charm. 



The botanists have great difficulty at times in describing the 

 colors of certain flowers, and when the blossoms look to one eye 

 pink, to another purple, they compromise and give the color as 

 ''pink-purple." It has been no easy matter to settle satisfac- 

 torily the positions in this book of many of the flowers, more es- 

 pecially as the individuals vary constantly in depth of color, and 

 even in actual color. 



July 7, 1852, Thoreau devotes a page in his journal to some 

 of these doubtful-colored flowers, whose heathenish titles excite 

 his ire. " Pogonias are still abundant in the meadows, but are- 

 thusas I have not lately seen. . . . The very handsome 

 ' pink-purple ' ^ flowers of the Calopogon pulchellus enrich the 

 grass all around the edge of Hubbard's blueberry swamp, and are 

 now in their prime. The Arethusa bulbosa, ' crystalline purple,' 

 Pogonia ophioglossoides^ snake-mouthed (tongued) arethusa, ' pale 

 purple, ' and the Calopogon pulchellus, grass pink, ' pink-purple, ' 



* As the Calopogon and Pogonia seem to me far more pink than purple, 

 they are placed in the Pink Section. The Arethusa and the purple-fringed 

 orchis will be found in the Purple Section. 



216 



