WILD, OR NATIVE FLOWERS. 



Wild Ginger — Asarnin Canadense (L.) 



ZZ 



This is a singular herbaceous plant, chiefly found in bush-wood and 

 damp, rich meadow-land. The leaves are wide, rounded kidney- 

 form with deep sinuses. The flower, on a short peduncle, springs from 

 the root-stock and appears below the leaves close to the ground, seldom 

 more than one to each plant ; it is campanulate with sharp pointed 

 segments of a deep chocolate colour. The floral envelope consists of a 

 calyx, but no corolla ; the creeping, thick fleshy root-stock is warm, 

 pungent and aromatic. It is a coarse singular looking plant much used 

 in Indian medicine craft. 



Showy Orchis. — Orchis spedabilis^ (L.) 



" Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 

 The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; 

 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 

 And waste its sweetness on the desert air." — Gray. 



Deep hidden in the damp recesses of the leafy woods, many a rare 

 and precious flower of the Orchis family blooms, flourishes, and decays, 

 unseen by human eye, unsought by human hand, until some curious, 

 flower-loving botanist plunges amid the rank, tangled vegetation, and 

 brings its beauties to the light. One of these lovely natives of our 

 Canadian forests is known as Orc/iis spedabilis — Beautiful Orchis — 

 or Showy Orchis. This pretty plant is not, indeed, of very rare 

 occurrence ; its locality is rich maple and beechen woods all through 

 Canada. The colour of the flower is white, shaded, and spotted with 

 pink or purplish lilac ; the corolla is what is termed ringent or gaping, 

 the upper petals and sepals arching over the waved lower-lipped petal. 

 The scape is smooth and fleshy, terminating in a loosely-flowered and 

 many-bracted spike ; the bracts are dark-green, sharp-pointed, and leafy; 

 the root a bundle of round white fibres ; the leaves, two in number, are 

 large, blunt, oblong, shining, smooth, and oily, from three to five inches 

 long, one larger and more pointed than the other. The flowering time 

 of the species is May and June. The exquisite cellular tissues of many 

 of our flowers of this order delight the eye, and give an appearance of 

 great delicacy and grace to the blossoms. In this charming species the 

 contrast between the lilac purple colour of the arching petals and sepals, 

 and the almoot pellucid lower lip or somewhat broadly lobed under petal, 

 is very charming. The large shining leaves lie close to the ground when 

 the plant is in flower. Transplanted to gardens, the Showy Orchis 

 rarely survives the second season of removal from the forest shade. It 

 will not grow freely, exposed to cold wind, or glaring sunlight. It loves 

 moist heat ; the conservatory would probably suit it, and it would he 

 worth a trial there. 

 c 



