7 6 



THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



indeed, as C. album, it was known in England before 1770. 

 Two blossoms often, sometimes three or four, are found on 

 the same plant, and I have been interested to learn from a 

 friend that he broke off a bud from a root he was transplanting, 

 one fall and found on cutting it open, two embryo flowers 

 packed away there, and even saw their pollen-masses without 

 the aid of a glass. 



C. spectabile comes as early as the 20th of June in southern 

 Connecticut, and, in early seasons, has been gathered on the 

 same date in Penobscot Co., Maine, where, says Miss Furbish, 

 " whole swamps appear to be devoted to it, and it really impedes 

 progress by its height and abundance." The 28th will answer 

 for Central Vermont and New Hampshire, but the White 

 Mountains, I think, rarely afford it before July. Its range, 

 elsewhere, is Wisconsin, Illinois and " southward along the Alle- 

 ghanies." I have read of a supposed case of poisoning by C. 

 spectabile and C. pubcsccns, and am eager in their behalf to shift 

 the blame upon the Poison Ivy and Poison Sumach, old offend- 

 ers, generally found skulking in the same localities. The False 

 Hellebore, a stout, coarse perennial, very abundant in low 

 ground, bears when young and before its racemes appear, a su- 

 perficial likeness to the Lady's Slippers, and I do not wonder 

 that it is considered a prize by the inexperienced who are 

 searching for C. spectabile. 



Prof. E. S. Bastin, of the University of Chicago, has kindly 

 allowed me to make extracts from a paper read by him at the 

 last meeting of the Social Science Association, in which a re- 

 markable specimen of C. spectabile is described. It was " found 

 in June, 1881, in the pine barrens on the southern end of 

 Lake Michigan. The monstrosity was an almost regular flower 

 growing on the same stem with one of the ordinary form. It 

 possessed three broadly lanceolate sepals, all alike and not at 

 all united. It had no lip, but three regularly formed pure 

 white petals all of the same size and shape, as long, but some- 



