74 



THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



more numerous and purplish blossoms, it has a better claim to 

 attention, but I fear that neither species will ever have its 

 praises celebrated in any but the heaviest prose. 



Aplectrum hyemale, the Winter Aplectrum, has a bulb like a 

 crocus, and on digging this up, two or more are found con- 

 nected with it, as offsets, generally in a horizontal line like 

 beads on a string. (See root of Tipularia, fig. 27.) Each 

 " requires two years for its perfect development, and dies at 

 the end of the third," after producing a scape of flowers; and 

 as each year one bulb shrivels and another is added, the scape 

 may almost be said to keep in motion. The character of the 

 root has given the popular name of "Adam and Eve " to this 

 Orchid, and the bulbs are worn as amulets by the southern 

 negroes and poor whites, who also place the (separated) bulbs 

 in water and according as Adam or Eve "pops up," calculate 

 the chances of retaining a friend's affection, of " getting work, 

 or of living in peace with neighbors ; " while Pursh tells us that 

 the sticky matter of which they are composed is mixed with 

 water and used by thrifty housewives to mend their crockery, 

 and Putty-root is the more widely known name at the North. 

 Like Calypso borealis, it sends up its single distinct leaf at the 

 end of summer or early in September, in rich dry woods. A 

 stiff, dark purple horn first pricks the ground, rises slowly, for 

 it has a long and severe life before it, and when it grudgingly 

 uncurls, shows a coarse leaf, greenish on the upper side and 

 threaded with numerous white veins. Crushed down and 

 bleached by the snows, it presents itself in the spring in a 

 very wrinkled condition, holding on bravely till the plant 

 flowers, when it withers away. Barton styles it the " Double- 

 bulbed Corallorhiza," and criticises Pursh and Willdenow for 

 endowing it with two leaves. The flowers resemble in shape 

 those of C. odontorhiza, and, as the Greek substantive signifies, 

 are spurless. The sepals and petals are dull yellow tipped 

 with brown ; the lip white, flecked with purple, and the per- 



