NATURE STUDY. 



In the next article of this series I will give a brief sum- 

 mary of the orchids found in this vicinity, their habitat and 

 time of flowering. 



Under the Pines. 



BY DOROTHY MAY. 



The Pine tree, it seems, is rather in disfavor with Park 

 Commissioners because grass will not grow under it. Ah, 

 but other things will. And how the heart of the nature 

 lover is stirred at the thought of them ! It is always en- 

 chanted ground where care and trouble fade away like a 

 dream of the night, under the pines. Even in Nove mber, 

 that "leanest month of all the year," the fierce winds that 

 sweep in wild gusts over the uplands, that whistle slirilly 

 through the naked branches of the oaks and maples, and 

 whip the dark waters of the lake to white-capped waves, 

 are hushed to sweetest music under the pines. Summer 

 has made her last retreat, and marshaled her invincible 

 and unyielding greens to meet the snows of winter, under 

 the pines. The stones and logs are covered with mosses — 

 the brave mosses, oldest of plants, that climb the high 

 mountains, and penetrate the frozen north, and show their 

 most of beaut)^ in the bleakness of late autumn or early 

 spring. The evergreen ferns lift their graceful fronds above 

 the carpet of pine needles which yields to the tread with 

 luxurious softness. The lycopodiums, that look like min- 

 iature pines, gather in little colonies. And scattered here 

 and there are the rich greens of plants whose blooms made 

 sweet the air of summer daj'S. The shining, dark leaves 

 of the pipsissewa, and the white- veined ones of the Mich- 

 ella, whose tiny, white, velvet blossoms, with perfume sug- 

 gestive of Mayflowers, are replaced by scarlet berries, and 

 the rattlesnake plantain, also white veined, whose orchid- 

 like blossom looks like a spiranthes untwisted. The three 



