Magenta to Pink 



against the stigma just below the end of the thick column that 

 almost closes the passage. Any powdery pollen she brought on 

 her back from another pogonia must now be brushed off against 

 the sticky stigma. Her feast ended, out she backs. And now a 

 wonderful thing happens. The lid of the anther which is at the 

 end of the column, catching in her shoulders, swings outward on 

 its elastic hinge, releasing a little shower of golden dust, which she 

 must carry on the hairs of her head or back until the sticky stigma 

 of the next pogonia entered kindly wipes it off ! This is one of 

 the few orchids whose pollen, usually found in masses, is not 

 united by threads. Without the bee's aid in releasing it from its 

 little box, the lovely species would quickly perish from the face 

 of the earth. 



Arethusa; Indian Pink ^ ^ '^ 



{Aretlnisa Inilbosa) Orchid family 



Flowers — i to 2 in. long, bright purple pink, solitary, violet scented, 

 rising from between a pair of small scales at end of smooth 

 scape from 5 to 10 in. high. Lip dropping beneath sepals 

 and petals, broad, rounded, toothed, or fringed, blotched with 

 purple, and with three hairy ridges down its surface. Leaf: 

 Solitary, hidden at first, coming after the flower, but attain- 

 ing length of 6 in. Root: Bulbous. Fruit: A 6-ribbed cap- 

 sule, I in. long, rarely maturing. 



Preferred Habitat — Northern bogs and swamps. 



Flowering Season — May — ^j une. 



Distribution — From North Carolina and Indiana northward to the 

 Fur Countries. 



One flower to a plant, and that one rarely maturing seed ; a 

 temptingly beautiful prize which few refrain from carrying home, 

 to have it wither on the way ; pursued by that more persistent 

 lover than Alpheus, the orchid-hunter who exports the bulbs to 

 European collectors — little wonder this exquisite orchid is rare, 

 and that from certain of those cranberry bogs of Eastern New 

 England, which it formerly brightened with its vivid pink, it has 

 now gone forever. Like Arethusa, the nymph whom Diana 

 changed into a fountain that she might escape from the infatuated 

 river god, Linnaeus fancied this flower a maiden in the midst of a 

 spring bubbling from wet places where presumably none may 

 follow her. 



But the bee, our Arethusa's devoted lover, although no 

 villain, still pursues her. He knows that moisture-loving plants 

 secrete the most nectar. When the head of the bee enters the 

 flower to sip, nothing happens ; but as he raises his head to 

 depart, it cannot help lifting the lid of the helmet-shaped anther 



85 



